Vegetable oil is a very important natural material commodity because its production is very large and its use is widely used for food, cosmetics and biodiesel renewable energy. The characterization of vegetable oils at this time is more intended to determine the composition of the constituent materials. Measurement of diffusion coefficients by the laser beam deflection method by the refractive index gradient of two liquids that are diffusing (the Wiener Method) is seen as an elegant, effective, and inexpensive method for transparent liquid materials, and prior research is more for simple small molecule materials. This thesis studied diffusion coefficient measurements based on the Wiener Method on four types of vegetable oils, namely palm oil, coconut oil, corn oil, sunflower oil and palm oil that has been heated repeatedly 1x, 3x, 5x, and 10x. The measurement system is modified by the use of cameras to capture images and use software for image processing, automatic digitization, and rapid calculation of diffusion coefficients. Composition testing was also carried out with Gas Chromatography to determine the effect of heating on the composition of the fatty acids contained. The diffusion coefficient of palm oil is measured 2.16x10-4 ± 0.05x10-4 cm2/minute, coconut oil 3.95x10-4 ± 0.05x10-4 cm2/minute, corn oil 2.48 x10- 4 ± 0.03 x10-4 cm2/minute, and sunflower oil 2.67x10-4 ± 0.04x10-4 cm2/minute at room pressure and temperature. Oil heating causes changes in oil composition. From the research it was found that the measurement of the diffusion coefficient of vegetable oil with the Wiener method showed the accuracy was less than 10% from the literature, although have sufficient precision with maximum error range of measured value is 10.6%, but could not distinguish the vegetable oil treatment because there was a measured diffusion coefficient almost the same for different heating treatments.
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