Sunday, May 3, 2009
3-56

Ethanol production from sweet sorghum by a dilute ammonia solution

Giovanna A. DeQueiroz, Deepti Salvi, Diana Robert, and Victor Bazan. Audubon Sugar Institute, Louisiana State University, 3845 HWY 75, Saint Gabriel, LA 70776

The Audubon Sugar Institute (ASI) is working diligently to enhance the productivity and profitability of the state of Louisiana by developing integrated technologies to convert energy crops such as sugarcane, sweet sorghum, energy cane and Miscanthus into value added products like alternative fuels, specialty chemicals, biomaterials and animal feeds. An ethanol process, utilizing dilute ammonia-treated sweet sorghum bagasse as feedstock material, has successfully been developed at ASI. This process resulted in at least 80% cellulose digestibility and 90% theoretical ethanol yield at 10% (dry weight) solids loading. Organic acids, glycerol, HMF and furfural concentrations were determined.