Fuels from sugar crops. Second quarterly report

Technical Report · Mon Oct 31 04:00:00 EST 1977

OSTI ID:5178223

Lipinsky, E S; Kresovich, S; McClure, T A; Helper, E W; Lawhon, W T

Substantial progress was made on both the agricultural and the processing aspects of the fuels from biomass research program. Despite droughts and hurricanes, yields on narrow row spacings show substantial gains over conventional spacings at all locations for both sugarcane and sweet sorghum. The biomass gains are most pronounced (40% to 100% increase) for Louisiana sugarcane and for sweet sorghum in Louisiana and Texas (50 to 100% gains). Although biomass increases are smaller in Florida, early ripening and possible soil conservation effects cause interest in close spacing in Florida to be maintained. The concept of integrating sweet sorghum production with sugarcane production could expand the area available for extensive sugar crop production by a factor of 10 or more. Sugar beets and sweet sorghum mesh together well from an agronomic viewpoint and the introduction of the Canadian Separator Equipment Process may make feasible integration of the processing of these crops. Evaluation of U.S. and Brazilian ethanol technology indicates that ethanol can be made quite economically in locations with long sugarcane processing seasons (e.g., Hawaii and Puerto Rico). The Melle Process practiced in Brazil appears to make possible extremely short fermentation times (10 to 16 hours, compared with 24 to 30 hours for U.S. practices). The primary key to reducing processing costs lies in increasing the concentration of ethanol in the fermented mash, not reduction in fermentation time. Suggestions for appropriate improvements have been made and the Reports of Invention filed with DOE's patent office. Five appendices are included.

• Research Organization: Battelle Columbus Labs., Ohio (USA)
• DOE Contract Number: W-7405-ENG-92
• OSTI ID: 5178223
• Report Number(s): TID-27834
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

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ALCOHOLS
BEETS
BIOCONVERSION
BIOMASS
BIOSYNTHESIS
BRAZIL
CEREALS
CLIMATES
CULTIVATION TECHNIQUES
DIAGRAMS
DRYING
ECONOMICS
ENERGY
ENERGY SOURCES
ETHANOL
FERMENTATION
FLORIDA
FLOWSHEETS
FOOD
GRAMINEAE
GRASS
HEAT
HYDROXY COMPOUNDS
INFORMATION
LOUISIANA
MAPS
NORTH AMERICA
ORGANIC COMPOUNDS
PLANTS
PROCESSING
RECOVERY
RENEWABLE ENERGY SOURCES
RESEARCH PROGRAMS
SORGHUM
SOUTH AMERICA
SUGAR BEETS
SUGAR CANE
SYNTHESIS
TABLES
TEXAS
USA
VEGETABLES
WASTE HEAT
WASTES
YIELDS