Pertamina And Toyota Trial Bioethenol 100 Percent At GIIAS 2024

Bioethenol (Photo: Unsplash)

JAKARTA - Pertamina collaborated with Toyota to carry out the initial filling and test drive of Bioethanol use sourced from Sorghum plant stems. The implementation of this activity coincided with the GAIKINDO Indonesia International Auto Show (GIIAS) 2024 event.

In the test drive conducted at GIIAS 2024, Bioethanol 100 percent (E100) produced from Sorghum plants, is used as an alternative fuel for Toyota's Flex Fuel Vehicle (FFV) vehicles.

Senior Vice President Research & Technology Innovation of PT Pertamina (Persero), Oki Muraza explained that to hold a test drive at GIIAS 2024, Pertamina has produced 150 liters of Bioethanol produced from biomasa grounds, namely Sorghum plant stems. The process of producing plant-based fuel uses distillation and dehydration equipment located at Pertamina's Technology Innovation Laboratory facility.

Nira sorghum is obtained through collaboration with universities that have conducted planting tests on several lands. After that, the resulting nira was fermented to Bioethanol and then purifyed," Oki said in a statement to the media, Thursday, July 25.

Oki added that Pertamina's Bioethanol has been tested on the Toyota Fortuner Flex Fuel Vehicle (FFV) vehicle showing increased performance with more perfect burning and lower emissions compared to fossil fuels in general.

Pertamina's next step, said Oki, is to increase Bioethanol production from laboratory scale to larger scale. In addition, Pertamina also, he said, is exploring partnerships to get the supply availability of Sorghum and other vegetable materials.

"By producing Bioethanol from Sorghum, it is not only a new renewable energy source for Indonesia, but also this innovation produces fuel without competing with foodstuffs, it can open up new jobs and small and medium-sized businesses in the Sorghum plantation sector, Nira processing, and Bioethanol processing," added Oki.

Vice President of Corporate Communication of PT Pertamina (Persero), Fadjar Djoko Santoso revealed that Pertamina encourages the use of Bioethanol as a fuel for transportation.

On this occasion Pertamina displayed its latest innovation, namely Bioethanol 100 percent (E100) and at the same time Pertamina implemented it gradually Bioethanol in Indonesia starting from Pertamax Green 95, namely fuel with Bioethanol content 5 percent (E5).

"With the implementation of the E5 in the upstream-downstream industry, it can provide benefits for reducing national gasoline imports, creating new jobs, increasing GDP and is expected to contribute to reducing emissions by 2.8 million tons of CO2 or 1.9 percent of emissions per year," said Fadjar.