Monday, April 30, 2012
Napoleon Ballroom C-D, 3rd fl (Sheraton New Orleans)
Studies worldwide are being made quickly and competitively in order to study and solve many problems still existing in the process of production and separation of bioethanol, especially for the second generation, taking into account economic, environmental and technology aspects. Although the first generation biofuels have the potential to replace fossil fuels as the main source of energy, its production is surrounded by issues such as the effects on world food supply and the destruction of tropical forests. The second-generation bioethanol has the advantage of dissociate the biomass of food sources. However, there are challenges and obstacles, such as costs, technology and environmental issues that must be overcome. The introduction of new processing technologies is crucial to the effective bioethanol production, making it a viable source of energy. This work has as objective to develop mathematical modeling and carry of simulations of the bioethanol production process from sugarcane bagasse using a hydrothermal pretreatment. The model is based on mass and energy balances and considers the diffusion inside the bagasse. The bagasse granulometry, the residence time and the temperature used in the pretreatment were considered. With the proposed model was possible to determine an optimal conversion of lignocellulosic biomass in order to obtain a larger fraction of hemicellulose, making it more accessible to enzymatic action to obtain fermentable sugars and posterior bioethanol production. It is shown that this pretreatment has a good potential to be a suitable candidate, allowing to explore the pentose fermentation in a reasonable competitive fashion.