THE PRODUCTION OF FUEL-GRADE BIOETHANOL FROM CASSAVA STARCH: A CONCEPTUAL PROCESS DESIGN

Copyright © 2014 ISSR Journals. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. ABSTRACT: This project proposes a conceptual process design for the production of bioethanol to produce an alternative fuel that can supplement the gasoline products at a very reasonable price and produces less carbon dioxide emissions which is mandated under section 5 of RA 9367, the Biofuels Law of 2006 which states that all gasoline products will have 10 percent blend bioethanol by 2011. Due to high demand, the project proposes a process design of 10,000 metric tons bioethanol per year using fed-batch fermentation process with Saccharomyces cerevisiae CBS 8066 as microorganism. The plant produces 99.80%(w/w) anhydrous alcohol based on the current ASTM specification and operates continuously with an annual production time of 7,200 hours. In order to optimize the overall process, a novel separation technique is considered in this study with respect to process design and economics by integrating pervaporation and ultrafiltration system. For dehydration and recovery of ethanol, hybrid distillation-pervaporation consists of a distillation column and an externally connected pervaporation module is used to overcome the azeotropic composition from the liquid mixtures of water and ethanol. The result is an integrated system of continuously producing bioethanol in purity up to 99.8%(w/w)