Phosphoric Acid and Sugarcane
Phosphoric acid is used to pretreat bagasse of sugarcane in sugar mills. As there is about 250kg bagasse left per ton of sugarcane after sugar juice is compressed from sugarcane. Sugar mills are used by-pass products: bagass to produce Ethanol for more income.
Enzymatic Degradation
Bagasse of sugarcane needs enzymatic degradation before distilling process. Bagasse usually contains 35-50% cellulose, 20-25% hemicellulose (20–35%) and12-20% lignin. Diluted phosphoric acid could prmote the process of Enzymatic degradation and increase Ethanol output.
Pretreatment by diluted phosphoric acid, usually 2–6%, can increase efficient fermentation of hemicellulose hydrolysate without the need of detoxification. Phosphoric acid provides an adequate environment for for the microbial fermentation of the hemicellulose hydrolysate , and produce more enzyme.
Precess from bagasse to Ethanol
In general, at first, sugarcane is crushed , then yeast is added, Final step: ethanol is distilled.
The process of making ethanol from bagasse (complex catalytic enzymatic hydrolysis) as follows:
- Sugarcane bagasse Crushed
- Pretreatment
- Enzymatic hydrolysis
- Filtering
- Enzymatic hydrolysis
- Filtering
- Applying Enzyme
- Fermentation
- Initial distillation
- 2nd distillation
- Product Ethanol
More than seven tons of bagasse can produce one ton of 95% ethanol without sewage discharge; the cost per ton of ethanol is more than $150-200 lower than other raw materials such as corn and cassava.