Suggestions for producing and introducing renewable and environment-friendly fuel (bioalcohol)
1993
Pozsonyi, F. | Pandi, F.
FAO analysts think that by the turn of the century approximately 1 thousand million hectares of today's arable land will not be needed for food production. If half of this land was used to grow plants with high sugar or starch content, and the crop was used to produce bioethanol 30-40 of crude oil consumption could be substituted and the carbon-dioxide emission would decrease by one-third. Advantages of ethanol as a fuel are: high octane number, there is no need for lead in the fuel, and it doesn't contain sulfur. Disadvantage is the higher fuel consumption since combustion heat of ethanol is only half of that of petrol. For these reasons a mixture of ethanol and petrol can be used. 10 ethanol improves the octane number by 4. Leaders in utilizing ethanol as a fuel are Brazil and the United States. According to their experience the alcohol yield of different plants is as follows: sugar-cane: 36.3 hl/ha; sugar beet: 35.0 hl/ha; corn: 22.0 hl/ha; wheat: 7.7 hl/ha. The mass production of bioalcohol is technically solved but without subvention the price of it is competitive with the price of petrol only if the price of crude oil is higher then 40 USD/barrel. The following technology is suggested in the case of corn, wheat, barley or rye. The raw material is elevated up to a 10 m high tower from where it falls down while being separated from iron, stone, and dust. Then it goes through a scale and arrives to the wet grinder where it is mixed with water, recirculated watery slop, and an enzyme that fluidifies the mixture. A screw pump forwards the suspension to the reactor where lime powder is added to set the pH to the desired level. After three hour's stay the fluidified hydrolysate goes to the saccharification reactor where the saccharifying enzyme saccharifies it. The hydrolysate is cooled down to the fermentation temperature in a heat exchanger then it is distributed into the fermenting tank
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