BRAZIL
“Ethanol production from this technique will be able to compete with gasoline as long as oil is above $40 a barrel,” claims Dedini’s Oliverio. He acknowledges that the prototype plant has encountered obstacles—it needs improved filters to remove sand, for example. “We haven’t been able to run the plant continuously because of the corrosiveness of the sand that gets into the system,” says Oliverio. “We are shutting down weekly.” Yet Oliverio doesn’t think sand removal will be a difficult obstacle to overcome.
Brazil will likely need hundreds of millions of tons of enzyme to break up the lignin in its annual 500 million-ton cane crop. “This type of acid method typically inhibits fermentation of the sugars in the bagasse, so mills will have to figure out how to overcome this,” says researcher Carlos Rossel of the Unicamp university. For the time being, Dedini’s blend—a dilute acid that doesn’t impair fermentation—is as promising as
Trend Bucking After nine decades, Dedini still innovates. Its DHR plant’s core process uses a diluted acid wash to break down the lignin that holds the C5 and C6 sugar molecules in the bagasse. So far, there is only a fermentation method for the C6 sugar. The C5 molecule would add about 25 percent more sugar and ethanol production to the hydrolysis system. According to tests of the prototype plant, conventional ethanol production at a mill could double from 6,000 liters per hectare (641 gallons per acre) of cane by simply using the bagasse to make cellulosic ethanol in addition to the ethanol made from the sucrose that comes from crushing the cane stalk. Questions remain regarding allocation of biomass. Most of the bagasse created in sugar and ethanol production now goes to thermoelectric cogeneration. And a third of the biomass from the cane plant is also left in the field. Dedini’s choice of a mild acid wash to break up lignin bucks a trend. Most scientists and researchers believe that the future of cellulosic ethanol production will be enzymes, but cheap mass production of required enzymes is difficult.
enzymes to become commercially viable in cellulosic ethanol production. In short, Dedini—a historic presence in Brazilian biofuels—is still very much in the game. EP Elizabeth Ewing is a journalist covering biofuels from Sao Paulo, Brazil.
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ETHANOL PRODUCER MAGAZINE JUNE 2008
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