Etanol Turns Out To Be Able To Increase Fuel Oktan, Reduce Carbon Emissions To Increase Machine Efficiency

Automotive observer from ITB, Yannes Martinus Pasaribu. (Photo: Indra/VOI)

JAKARTA - In the midst of the ethanol issue contained in Pertamina's fuel oil (BBM), it turns out that there are benefits from this substance. This was revealed by automotive observer from the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB), Yannes Martinus Pasaribu.

Later Pertamina revealed that Vivo and BP refused to buy fuel from the red plate because it contained ethanol. The results of laboratory tests, the base fuel imported by Pertamina contained 3.5 percent ethanol.

Yannes assessed that the rejection of the private gas station was based more on pure raw materials for their fuel. Or on the other hand, it does not meet the criteria for fuel specifications needed by private gas stations.

"Actually, technically, they asked for a pure base fuel without any mixture. But it could be that the rejection was due to the incompatibility of the SOP with the internal specifications of the formulation of each company which was strongly determined by its principal policies related to their global operating policies, not because the ethanol itself was problematic," Yannes said at VOI, Friday, October 3.

Furthermore, Yannes revealed that ethanol is a fairly good substance in fact. Starting from reducing carbon emissions, even increasing the number of octane to providing good performance on machines.

"Because, in general, the benefits of ethanol can reduce carbon emissions, especially CO and other small particles, then ethanol comes from biomass, thus helping Indonesia's transition to clean energy," he said.

"Ethanol can even increase the number of octane to prevent knockout on machines, then with this small content the risk of corrosion in conventional machines is also very minimal compared to its benefits that tend to be more dominant," he continued.

Therefore, in general, at low concentrations such as 3.5 percent, ethanol acts as an organic compound containing oxygen which can help burn more fully. So that it can increase machine efficiency.