DefinePK

Abstract

Surfactant synthesis from hexadecanoic acid and arginine is influenced by several variables, including catalyst amount (A), mix solvent (B), and arginine to an acid ratio (C). For this reason, Central Composite Design (CCD) and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) methods are used to optimize the values of the three variables that can produce a maximum surface response. In this work, the synthesis was carried out at a temperature of 60oC for 4 hours and a motor rotation of 250 rpm, using a calcium oxide catalyst and tert-amyl alcohol as a solvent. In addition, the effect of A, B, and C were discussed in terms of the percent conversion of hexadecanoic acid. Of the three variables observed, the percent conversion mainly depends on the arginine to acid ratio and is less influenced by the catalyst amount. The ANOVA results show that the recommended model is a quadratic model, with adjusted R2 0.8823 and predicted R2 0.2476.