Predesign of Rice Straw-Based Cellulose Plant with Steam Explosion Method

Cellulose is one of the main components of plants, depending on the plants, the cellulose content can be up to 98%. Cellulose has a wide range of use. It can be used in the food industries, pharmacy, paper, and chemical industries. To extract the cellulose from biomass, the biomass needs to undergo a pre-treatment. This study uses steam explosion pre-treatment as it does not cause hazards to the environment, has low energy cost, and low investment cost. In this pre-treatment, steam will be injected into the biomass until the pressure reach 15 bar, then decline rapidly to make an explosion that causes damage to cellulose crystalline. After that, the process continues to main process, which are washing, and alcohol extraction. Then continued to alcohol recovery. After considering many factors, a cellulose plant from rice straw will be built in 2023 in industrial parks Java Integrated Industrial and Ports Estate or known as JIIPE with a capacity of 370,000 tons/ year. Based on economic analysis, this plant has an internal rate of return of 35.17% and a payout time of 3.98 years. This makes this plant feasible to be built.