From Fields To Engines – Sugarcane To Bioethanol

• Elizabeth John
• Kamil Stanczyk
• Erica Li
• Evan Johnson

Bioethanol has recently made its way into the engines of many vehicles around the world to provide solutions to reduce the harmful emissions that contribute greatly to global warming. With carbon dioxide accounting for the majority of climate change related issues, the introduction of bioethanol operating engines will provide sustainable solutions for the future of energy. The use of bioethanol to power vehicles in Brazil has been increasing exponentially since 2007, in which 72% of Brazilian cars were fuel-flex vehicles. With Brazil’s increasing dependence in bioethanol, the goal of this project is to utilize biomass, specifically sugarcane, to produce high quality bioethanol that will be blended with gasoline or used alone in engines to reduce harmful emissions. The objective of cost-efficient, environmentally conscious, and self-sustaining process provides the basis of this process design. The design features five distinct sections: milling, juice treatment, evaporation, fermentation, and separation. The production will be partially self-sustaining with the byproducts of the process, vinasse and bagasse, utilized to provide power to the process. The process will feature a yeast propagator which will provide a cost effective solution to the recovery of yeast in the vital fermentation step. The resulting bioethanol will be 99.7% pure and used primarily in the vehicle industry to greatly reduce production of harmful greenhouse gases in hopes of obtaining a sustainable energy source for the future.

• Design brochure (Word document download)