(619u) Sugar Cane Bagasse As Raw Materials for Biorefineries: The Colombian Case

Valentina Hernández¹, Angela A. González¹, Carlos A. Cardona²

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¹Tecnoparque, Centro de procesos Industriales. Servicio Nacional de Aprendizaje SENA

²Instituto de Biotecnología y Agroindustria. Departamento de Ingeniería Química. Universidad Nacional de Colombia Sede Manizales

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Sugar cane bagasse (SCB) is the fibrous residue obtained after extracting the juice from sugar cane (Saccharum officinarum) in the sugar production process. It is one of the major lignocellulosic materials found in great quantities in tropical countries. According to FAO approximately 1870 million Tons of sugarcane were processed in 2013 throughout the world. SCB is produced in large quantities by the sugar and alcohol industries in Brazil, India, Cuba, China, México, Indonesia and Colombia. Currently, the most common use for SCB is the energy production through cogeneration plants. Although, because of the importance of SCB as an industrial waste, there is great interest in developing methods for the biological production of fuel and chemicals that offer economic, environmental, and strategic advantages, such as furfural, hydroxymethylfurfural, paper paste or ethanol.

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In Colombia, sugarcane is cultivated in six departments: Valle del Cauca, Cauca, Risaralda, Norte de Santander, Cesar and Caldas. However, zones close to the Valle del Cauca River (Valle del Cauca, Cauca and Risaralda) located in the southwestern part of country; concentrate the highest harvested area. In 2010 approximately 20.272.500 tons of sugarcane were produced from 218.000 ha of planted area in this region, representing approximately 99% of the total production in Colombia. Sugar and alcohol facilities in Colombia are concentrated in the Valle del Cauca River, where 5 sugar mill producers operate with daily ethanol capacity production ranging between 100000-300000 L/day (See Table 1). The main lignocellulosic byproduct from sugarcane processing is SCB, with a national average yield of 25 Ton per 100 Ton of sugarcane.

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Table 1: Â Sugar mill and alcohol industries in Colombia

^aCalculated using the national average yield of 1.9 Ton ethanol/100 Ton sugarcane

^bCalculated based on the national average yield of 25 Ton bagasse/100 Ton sugarcane.

^cWet basis, national average moisture content of 47%.

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As an alternative to the conventional use of SCB, in this work, simulation results of the production of biofertilizers and gibberellic acid from SCB as stand-alone products are presented. Characterization results have been used to feed the simulations to obtain the mass and energy balances that were subsequently used to perform the economic and environmental analysis of the above mentioned processes. Moreover, comparisons from the techno-economic and environmental points of view of these stand-alone processes with gasification as base case were performed. Besides, two biorefinery scenarios were techno-economic and environmental assessed in order to evaluate the influence of integrating the production of biofertilizers and gibberellic acid together with other added-value products.