Dhoni Hartanto

I was born and grew up in Ponorogo, East Java Province, Indonesia. I have received a BSc degree in chemical engineering from Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember ITS, Indonesia (2007-2011) and a MSc degree in chemical engineering as a double degree program from Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember ITS, Indonesia and National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taiwan (2011-2013). Since 2013, I have been working as a junior lecturer in the Chemical Engineering Department at Universitas Negeri Semarang (UNNES), Indonesia. Currently, I am pursuing a PhD degree in the Transport Phenomena section, Chemical Engineering Department at TU Delft with a doctoral scholarship provided by the Indonesia Endowment Fund for Education (LPDP), Ministry of Finance, Republic of Indonesia. I am working in the fields of thermodynamics, biobased separation technology, and process simulation and optimization, where I am supervised by Prof. Dr. Ir. André B. de Haan and Prof. Dr. Ir. Anton A. Kiss.

Research

The utilization of novel and eco-friendly processes and technology due to environmental issues is gaining increasing attention worldwide. One of the most important processing steps in the chemical industry is a separation process that requires 50% of the energy cost and contributes to 10% to 15% of the world’s energy consumption. Common problems that occur in chemical purification involve the azeotrope point or close-boiling behaviour in the solvent mixtures. The high energy consumption, capital investments, and carbon footprint in the azeotrope or close-boiling mixture separation process elevate it to the most difficult stage of the industrial process. Consequently, the search for a nature-friendly and efficient azeotrope or close-boiling mixture separation process has been increasing for the last few years. The azeotrope point or close-boiling can be removed using a separating agent called an entrainer through the extractive distillation (ED) process. The addition of an entrainer can reduce the energy consumption, total annual cost, as well as carbon footprint in the azeotrope or close-boiling mixture separation process. Several eco-friendly types of entrainers have been intensively studied in recent years.

However, many other potential green entrainers have not been evaluated and compared with both other green and conventional entrainers from molecular, technological, economic, and environmental perspectives. My project is to evaluate the potential green entrainers and most feasible sugar-based deep eutectic solvents (DESs) as eco-friendly entrainers in extractive distillation. This research will include the entrainer screening method using molecular calculation, measurements of vapour-liquid equilibria for azeotrope or close-boiling mixtures containing green entrainers and selected sugar-based DESs, and performing the process simulation to obtain the most feasible process design from technological, economic, and environmental perspectives compared with other green entrainers and conventional organic solvent-based processes.