CHE.03 Production of Fuel-Grade Bioethanol from Sugarcane to Support India’s 2025 Ethanol Blending Program

• Daisaq Cyrilla
• Mario Ocampo
• David Quiroga
• Blerta Useini

With the effects of climate change in the world today, countries are working harder than ever to tackle some of the leading causes of greenhouse gas emissions. One such being the production and burning of gasoline in the world’s vehicles. India has set forth an Ethanol Blending Program (EBP) with the goal of achieving 20 percent blending of ethanol in gasoline by the year 2025 to reduce emissions throughout the country. Our team aims to divert some of the country’s excess sugarcane to produce more ethanol for fuel blending. This is accomplished via the development of an ethanol plant with a production rate of 100 kiloliter per day (KLPD) and water self-sufficiency, as we recycle the water used to wash the sugarcane and evaporated out of the juice to be sent back to the system. The process incorporates an optimal design of fermentation and distillation to produce our 99.9 percent ethanol product. Additionally, the process produces reusable and sellable by-products of sugarcane press-mud, bagasse, pure carbon dioxide, vinasse, and water. With current developments in the design, our process is profitable and of a capacity double the standard molasses-to-ethanol plants currently operating in India. Therefore, our plant aids in leading the country one step closer to their ethanol blending goal and future work includes increasing the plant size and analyzing the change in profitability.