How to Profit From Manufacturing Bio-Ethanol
Rasa Bihari Mishra
Business Consultant : Helping Chemical, Pharmaceutical, Biotechnology, Food & Agro Processing, and Formulations Industries become Profitable & Sustainable - Concept to Commissioning Support and Technical Training
Manufacturing Bio-Ethanol Can Help You Develop a Profitable and Sustainable Business.
You can meet the human wants effectively by manufacturing Bio-Ethanol and contribute to the sustainability initiatives.
But before getting into the details, let me ask you a few important questions:
Do you know from where the liquid fuel you use in your car comes?
Do you know how the chemical products are made?
First of all, let’s talk about the first question. Liquid fuels are essential for the modern society. Isn’t it?
But what’s it’s connection with bio-ethanol?
Let’s see…
Liquid Fuels are Essential
The liquid fuels like petrol and diesel are essential for running the vehicles. And most of them are made in the petroleum refineries by using crude petroleum.
But the crude petroleum is a non-renewable resource. It won’t last long. So, you need renewable resource to make fuels in order to make the system sustainable. The aim is to replace the crude petroleum completely or at least partially. Isn’t it?
Here Bio-Ethanol comes into the picture.
Because you can use ethanol in blending petrol. Thereby you’re helping in reducing the usage of non-renewable resource.
But why bio ethanol?
Why Bio-Ethanol?
When it comes to ethanol you can make it in petrochemical industry by hydrating ethylene gas. But there’s an issue. Ethylene gas is made from crude petroleum and it’s not a renewable resource.
So, the petroleum derived ethanol is a petrochemical and can’t be considered sustainable.
Whereas bioethanol is made from renewable resources like sugarcane, cereal grains, or lignocellulosic waste. It's a fermentation product. The bioethanol manufacturing utilizes fermentation technology. We shall get into the details when we talk about the manufacturing process.
In fact, manufacturing bio ethanol especially when made from lignocellulosic waste is a powerful way to utilize waste.
So, the bio based ethanol – Bio-Ethanol - can be considered sustainable.
But how to replace petroleum derived fuel with bioethanol?
You can achieve partial replacement by blending petrol with bioethanol.
Let’s see what’re the advantages by blending petrol with bio-ethanol.
Advantages of Petrol Blending
Though there are many advantages of petrol blending with bioethanol we shall consider the major ones:
Source of Renewable Energy
Since bioethanol is derived from renewable sources such as sugarcane, corn, or lignocellulosic waste, it opens up a renewable energy source. That’s why using bioethanol as a blend in petrol contributes to a more sustainable and environmentally friendly energy usage.
Improvement in Fuel Quality
When you blend bioethanol with petrol, you achieve improved overall octane rating of petrol. As it improves the fuel quality, you can expect improved engine performance and efficiency of your vehicles.
Additional Source of Energy
When you diversify the fuel sources with bioethanol, you reduce the dependence on fossil fuels significantly. It helps in promoting energy security. Because bioethanol can be produced locally, you depend less on imported fuel.
Reduction in Carbon Footprint
When bioethanol is manufactured employing sustainable practices, usage of bioethanol is better with respect to carbon dioxide emission. Because the carbon dioxide emitted during combustion is offset by the carbon dioxide absorbed during crop growth. If you get into the details, you’ll find the overall carbon footprint can approach carbon neutrality.
Fuel blending with bioethanol has may other advantages like support for agriculture, job creation and waste utilization especially when you make bioethanol from lignocellulosic wastes.
In fact, petrol can be blended with different percentages of bioethanol, providing the flexibility in usage. It can be used in vehicles designed for petrol, requiring minimal modifications. So, it can help in a gradual transition to cleaner fuels without making significant changes in infrastructure.
With special vehicle engine design, you can run the vehicles solely with bio-ethanol.
Now let talk about the second question I’ve asked you in the beginning: How the chemical products are made.
If you get into the details of the resources used for making chemical products, you’ll find most of them to be petroleum based. Even the solvents used in various industries are petroleum based.
Replacing Petroleum based Chemical Feedstock
But it's important to replace petroleum based chemical feedstock. Why?
Because replacing petroleum-based chemical feedstocks is crucial for several reasons.
Let’s talk about some of them:
Adverse Environmental Impact
The petroleum derived chemical feedstocks are made from fossil fuels. As we’ve already discussed, they contribute to greenhouse gas emissions and climate changes. That’s why? by transitioning to alternative feedstocks from renewable sources, we can not only reduce our dependence on non-renewable resources but also minimize the adverse impact on the environment.
Economic Growth and Innovation
When you embrace alternative feedstocks for manufacturing chemical products, it stimulates innovations in manufacturing industries. And it results in development of new technologies and new industries. It helps in economic growth and job creation. Above all it helps in improving the industrial competitiveness in the global market.
Sustainable Manufacturing
It’s a well known fact that modern world can’t sustain without the chemical products. When you use renewable resource like bioethanol as chemical feed stock, you help in meeting the human wants sustainably.
You can manufacture a number of commercially important chemical products from bioethanol. Additionally bio-ethanol can be used as solvent in various industries in place of petroleum based solvents.
In fact, using bioethanol for fuel blending and replacing petroleum derived chemical feedstocks aligns with sustainability goals. It helps in environmental sustainability, enhances resource efficiency. Above all it helps in sustainable economic growth.
And it has got many other usage in food, pharmaceutical and personal care products.
But when you talk about bioethanol, the manufacturing must be cost-efficient. Because unless you manufacture high quality of bioethanol at minimum cost, it won’t serve it’s purpose.
Before getting into the details, let’s talk about the manufacturing process.
Manufacturing Process
The manufacturing process will depend on the feedstock from which bioethanol is manufactured. We shall get into the feedstock details later.
Let’s now talk about the manufacturing process in general.
The major process steps are:
The manufacturing process starts with the preparation and pretreatment.
Feedstock Preparation and Pretreatment
It’s important to subject the feedstock to the preparation processes. First of all the raw materials are cleaned thoroughly using suitable cleaning procedures. Then it’s subjected to size reduction processes like grinding, chopping or other methods using suitable size reduction machinery. The size reduction step is very important because it results the increasing the surface area. That’s how it helps in the pretreatment processes.
The pretreatment process works at the molecular level. It helps to break down the complex structures of the feedstock into simpler sugars in order to felicitate fermentation. Of course, the pretreatment processes will be different for different feedstocks.
The pretreatment processes may include physical treatment like heating or chemical treatment. For the complex feedstocks like lignocellulosic waste enzymatic hydrolysis may be necessary. Here enzymes are added to the pretreated raw material to convert complex carbohydrates like cellulose into fermentable sugars.
Ethanol Fermentation
Fermentation is a biological process carried out by microorganisms. The organisms are so small that you can’t see them without using a microscope. Once the pretreatment process is complete and the fermentation media containing fermentable sugars is ready, fermentation process starts.
In most of the manufacturing processes pure culture used. Specially developed microbial culture from fungi (yeast) or bacterial kingdom is used for ethanol fermentation. These microorganisms metabolize the sugars, converting them into ethanol and carbon dioxide through anaerobic (without air) fermentation process.
Of course, the duration of fermentation varies from process to process. It depends on factors like temperature, pH, the type of microorganism employed as well as the raw material feedstock used.
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Ethanol Distillation and Dehydration
Once the fermentation is over, the product - ethanol has already been produced. But that’s not enough. Because the product is with many other undesired substances and in a very diluted form. The product must be recovered and purified in order to make it useful.
The most efficient recovery process involves fractional distillation. Here the fermented broth is subjected to fractional distillation to separate ethanol from water and other volatile and non-volatile compounds.
But because ethanol forms azeotrope with water, you can’t achieve anhydrous (without water) product by fractional distillation.
When you talk about the end use of the product, you need to make the distilled ethanol anhydrous especially for fuel blending. Even for using bioethanol as chemical feedstock in most of the cases you need to make it anhydrous.
Of course, you can achieve this objective by employing additional manufacturing step like azeotropic distillation or molecular sieve treatment.
Business Profitability
From a techno-commercial point of view, you’ll be interested in knowing whether manufacturing bioethanol is profitable or not. Isn’t it?
Stop for a moment and do the product costing. When you start doing the costing, you’ll find the purchase prices of the raw materials make all the difference. But most of the raw material feedstocks are available at reasonable prices.
Especially when you talk about lignocellulosic waste as raw material, the purchase prices will be quite attractive. Of course, for lignocellulosic waste utilization, the manufacturing process will be complex. And it'll call for higher capital investment.
But irrespective of the raw material feedstock used, when you do the costing, you’ll find them to be profitable.
Now let’s talk about the raw material feedstocks used for bioethanol manufacturing. Of course, the manufacturing processes used for different feedstocks are different.
Raw Material Feedstocks
There are three major types of biobased raw material feedstocks:
Sugar Based Feedstock
When you sugar based feedstocks, the major resource is sugarcane juice. Mostly there are two feedstocks which can be used for bioethanol manufacturing:
Molasses
In sugar industry, sugar is made from sugarcane iuice. When the sugar is crystallized from the concentrated juice, the sugar crystals are filtered. The filtrate or the mother liquor is obtained, but some sugar is left in the mother liquor.
That sugar industry waste is called Molasses. Various types of Molasses are formed in which the Sugar Content varies. This sugar based feedstock can be used for making bioethanol.
Sugarcane Juice
Sugarcane juice is extracted from sugarcane. Harvested sugarcane stalks are cleaned thoroughly and crushed using suitable crushers to extract the juice. Once the juice is extracted, it is strained to remove any solid impurities like dirt and plant debris.
Filtered sugarcane juice is subjected to fermentation followed by fractional distillation. Here it is utilized directly for manufacturing bioethanol. That’s how sugarcane juice is used solely for making bioethanol. No sugar-based products like refined sugar or jaggery are made.
Starchy Feedstock
When you talk about starchy feedstocks, corn (maize), wheat, rice or cassava are commonly used for bioethanol production. It’s because of their high starch content and availability. Because these feedstocks are food products, the availability and the purchase prices are of utmost importance. Careful techno-commercial evaluation is necessary to choose the right starchy feedstock.
The starchy feedstock undergo the preparation processes like cleaning, milling, and cooking to release of starch molecules. In most of the manufacturing processes starch hydrolysing enzyme is used for starch hydrolysis. In fact, enzymatic hydrolysis results in the formation of fermentable sugars.
Lignocellulosic Waste
The lignocellulosic wastes are abundantly available. So there is no issue with the purchase prices and the availability. But the major issue is with using them for bioethanol manufacturing. They contain cellulose (polymer of sugars). It’s extremely difficult to hydrolyze cellulose into fermented sugars.?
The cellulose can only be hydrolyzed into sugars by using advanced enzymes. And elaborate preparation processes need to be followed before enzymatic hydrolysis. Of course, once the fermentable sugars are formed the rest of the processes are more or less similar to what is followed for other feedstocks.
However the technology is very difficult and expensive.
Innovation Opportunities
The ethanol manufacturing Business can be made Efficient by taking multiple Improvement Initiatives.
Let’s list them down:
?Flexible Manufacturing
The manufacturing facility need to be flexible enough to process multiple feedstocks, so that different feedstocks can be used based on commercial advantages. It’s important to diversify the feedstock. You need to identify and utilize a broader range of feedstocks for bioethanol production. It’s better to go for sustainable feedstock options by exploring non-food sources or waste materials.?
Value added Byproducts
Since the raw material feedstocks are biobased materials, they contain many valuable ingredients in addition to the main raw material. So integrated manufacturing using the power of advanced technologies can yield many value added products like Food Products, Nutraceuticals, Cosmetic Ingredients, Animal Feed, BioFertilizers, and other Specialized Products.
Making Manufacturing Cost-Efficient
Since ethanol manufacturing is energy intensive, making the manufacturing facility energy efficient can add tremendous value.
Adopting continuous manufacturing processes along with energy integration can bring down the energy consumption significantly. Additionally advanced separation technologies can make the manufacturing energy-efficient.
Today most of the bioethanol manufacturing processes are based on old technology. Adopting efficient technologies can result in improved manufacturing performance and help in making the business profitable and sustainable.
Advanced biotechnology can enhance the efficiency of ethanol-producing microorganisms. Of course, this includes developing strains with higher yields, improved resistance to ethanol concentration.
In short, it can result in enhanced fermentation capabilities. In fact, efficient enzyme systems and fermentation technology can add tremendous value.
Innovative Waste Utilization
When you find innovative ways to utilize the wastes generated in bioethanol manufacturing, you can add tremendous value to your business. In fact, this can contribute to waste reduction and create additional revenue streams for making the business profitable
Let's Conclude
Manufacturing Bio-Ethanol Can Help You Develop a Profitable and Sustainable Business.
Bio-Ethanol Market
Bio-ethanol has two major usages to replace petroleum based nonrenewable petroleum based chemical feedstocks:
It is also used to make food products, pharmaceuticals and personal care products.
Manufacturing Process
Bioethanol manufacturing involves the major process steps like:
Raw Material Feedstocks to make Bioethanol
There are three major types of biobased raw material feedstocks:
Innovation Opportunities
The ethanol manufacturing Business can be made Efficient by taking multiple Improvement Initiatives.
Some of the areas you can focus on are:
That's why technical entrepreneurs interested in Sustainable Business can consider Bioethanol Manufacturing.
The business success of Bioethanol Manufacturing will depend on how well you do the preliminary techno-economic evaluation based on the resources available to you.
Let’s join hands in using the innovations in Bioethanol Manufacturing and developing them further to make the manufacturing business Profitable and Sustainable.
I'm curious to hear your thoughts on this exciting topic. Share your insights in the comments below!
If you’re interested in knowing more about chemical manufacturing in general, perhaps you can refer to my other articles. You can follow my LinkedIn page for regular updates and insights on process industry.
What is your experience with Bioethanol Manufacturing Business?