Design and Evaluation of Fuel Alcohol Production from

178 Pages·2011·1.21 MB·English

Design and Evaluation of Fuel
Alcohol Production from
Lignocellulosic Raw Materials

Julián Andrés Quintero Suárez

Universidad Nacional de Colombia Sede Manizales
Facultad de Ingeniería y Arquitectura, Departamento de Ingeniería Eléctrica, Electrónica y
Computación
Manizales, Colombia
2011
Diseño y Evaluación de la
Producción de Alcohol Carburante a
partir de Materias Primas
Lignocelulósicas

Julián Andrés Quintero Suárez

Universidad Nacional de Colombia Sede Manizales
Facultad de Ingeniería y Arquitectura, Departamento de Ingeniería Eléctrica, Electrónica y
Computación
Manizales, Colombia

Design and Evaluation of Fuel
Alcohol Production from
Lignocellulosic Raw Materials

Julián Andrés Quintero Suárez

Thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of:
Doctor of Philosophy in Engineering – Automatic Engineering

Advisor:
Ph.D., M.Sc, Chemical Engineer Carlos Ariel Cardona Alzate

Research line:
Chemical and Biotechnological Processes Engineering
Research group:
Chemical, Catalytic and Biotechnological Processess

Universidad Nacional de Colombia Sede Manizales
Facultad de Ingeniería y Arquitectura, Departamento de Ingeniería Eléctrica, Electrónica y
Computación
Manizales, Colombia
2011

A mis padres, mi esposa y mi hijo

Acknowledgment

I would like to thanks first to God and to my parents who have gave me the life, the spirit
of triumph and the desire of living and working for progress. Thanks to my advisor who
has believed in me and, with his excellent skills on research and students advice, has
dressed me to the way of success in my undergraduate and postgraduate studies.
Thanks to my research fellows, whose friendship and help was unconditional and
necessary for the accomplishment of my objectives.

Thanks to the National University of Colombia Manizales Campus for the finantial support,
to the Faculty of Engineering and Architecture for finantial support in air tickets to United
States, to the Research Office for the finantial support in the internship in United States,
to the Department of Electricity, Electronic and Computational Engineering for the finantial
support in the internship in Roma, to the Food and Agrocultural Organizations (FAO) for
the reception in their headquarters and finantial support in air tickets to Rome and Dar Es
Salaam, to the Dr. Ashwani K. Gupta and to his research group for the hospitality and
help during my internship in the University of Maryland in the United States and to the
Government of Caldas for providing the bioreactors located in the Institute of
Biotechnology and Agroindustry, which where required for developing the the
experimental objectives.

Abstract

Fuel ethanol production still represents many technological challenges, due mainly to the
implicit complexity and costs of feedstock and other inputs. However, this process has
been implemented at different scales, including the commercial one, through tax
exemptions or subsides, which seek to lower production costs. In this thesis alternative
feedstock, such as lignocellulosics wastes are discussed considering their production,
advantages and drawbacks. The importance of conditioning and pretreatment as decisive
process steps for conversion of feedstocks into ethanol is highlighted. Main methods for
conditioning and pretreatmen are presented as well as the enzymatic procedures. The
need of pretreatment of lignocellulosic biomass is analyzed considering the complexity of
this type of raw material. The difficulties related to the enzymatic hydrolysis of cellulose
are analyzed considering the enzyme complexes employed. Main fermentation and
concentration technologies for ethanol production are discussed. Fuel ethanol production
from lignocellulosic residues was evaluated considering techno-economic and
environmental aspects. Different pretreatment technologies were evaluated by simulation
and validated experimentally. Energy consumption was found to be the most contributing
factor in process unfeasibility.

Key words: Pretreatments, sugarcane bagasse, rice husk, coffee cut-stems, empty
fruit bunches, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, economic assessment.