Tuesday, April 30, 2013
Exhibit Hall
Nowadays, some byproducts of the ethanol production process, which until recently were treated as waste, e.g., vinasse, has attracted a crescent interest from the sugarcane industry, in an effort to reduce the environmental impact as well as to add value as much as possible in the production chain. The vinasse or stillage is a residue generated in large amounts in the ethanol production process, more specifically in the separation stage. Until the mid-1970s, the vinasse was launched in the rivers causing environmental damage. After several studies and evaluations, it was found that the vinasse has a significant concentration of nutrients (such as potassium, phosphorus and nitrogen), which motivated the utilization of this residue in the cane fields as fertilizer to increase the productivity of sugarcane, besides bringing economic and environmental benefits. More recently, several studies about the biodigestion of vinasse for energy production have been performed. Bearing this in mind, this work aims to assess different strategies for the use of vinasse, such as a fertilizer from its concentration and also for energy production from its biodigestion. The assessment was performed with the development of a comprehensive simulation environment in the Aspen PlusTM process modeling environment. Another important aspect that should also be considered is that related to the assessment of different strategies for reducing the amount of vinasse generated in the fermentation process, for instance, the optimization of the fermentation process in order to obtain a wine with higher alcohol content.