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Abstract - Current problem affecting production of the Philippines are concentrated in Western Visayas, a
ethanol for sugar cane distilleries in the Philippines is region in the central part of the country, which contribute
due to fluctuations in cane harvesting which affects to 36.91% of the total registered capacity produced by the
supply to milling, mash availability to fermentation country in the ethanol production3. The usual design of
and downstream flowrate. This undergraduate distilleries in the Philippines is mostly sugar mills which
chemical engineering design project addresses this are converted into Distilleries.
constraint by designing a dual-feedstock plant utilizing However, most harvesting methods of sugar
molasses and sugar cane juice for a total production of plantations in the Philippines are still conducted manually
100m3 of anhydrous ethanol per day. Fed-batch which leads to issues such as cane supply inconsistency6.
fermentation of Saccharomyces cerevisiae was This technological limitation yields to series of production
simulated to produce a 7-11% v/v ethyl alcohol for problems starting with fluctuating mash volume for
three 500m3 nominal capacity fermenters. Downstream fermentation. Subsequently, production suffers from a low
operations simulation was achieved involving the Beer distillation flow rate, hence, low daily ethanol production
Column, the Rectifier and the Dehydration operations volume. In extreme cases, plant shutdown is necessary
following a Soave-Redlich-Kwong thermodynamic since there is also low supply of bagasse to provide fuel
equation of state to achieve a minimum of 99.7% v/v for boiler operation.
ethanol strength. Aside from the main process, utilities One solution is to incorporate molasses as an
such as the Water Treatment facility with Reverse alternative feedstock along with sugar cane in a semi-
Osmosis (RO) plant was also simulated producing a continuous operation to maximize productivity. Multiple
total process water flow of 840m3 per day and boiler feedstock is not uncommon in the industry while it is an
water of 438m3 per day. Furthermore, this design attractive option to increase productivity even during off-
project demonstrates the use of educational and free season maintenance and repairs7. When there is a need to
open source software (FOSS). Lastly, this plant design reduce duration of off-season, distilleries can run
project provides process engineering tools and production with a different feedstock to increase
assessments such as construction of Piping and productivity.
Instrumentation diagrams (P&ID) and Hazard and
Operability Studies (HAZOP). The design project II. METHODOLOGY
accomplishes a final-year chemical engineering process A. Design Team
and plant design exercise as well as providing solutions The design exercise is conducted by a team composed
to productivity in semi-continuous distillery plants. of senior chemical engineering students from the Chemical
Engineering Plant Design Course in the University of San
Keywords: Chemical Engineering Plant Design, Agustin, Iloilo City, Philippines. The unit operations and
Bioethanol, Distillery, Free open-source software processes involved in the design project cover
(FOSS), Process simulation. fermentation, distillation, dehydration, water treatment/
RO. This design project is a demonstration of aligning our
I. INTRODUCTION course with the Outcomes-Based Education (OBE)
The bioethanol industry in the Philippines is a growing teaching and learning activities of the College to satisfy
Php30 billion industry and is considered as one of the most beyond-the-classroom activities and real-life applications8.
important renewable energy source in the country1. Each student works on the basic material and energy
Through the Biofuels Law or Republic Act 9367, the balances of assigned unit, design calculations of main
Philippines became the first Southeast Asian country to process and auxiliary equipment such as pumps and heat
have biofuels legislation implemented2. The producers in exchangers, mathematical modeling (fermentation),
The 1st Thailand Biorefinery Conference
"The Future of Biorefinery for Thailand 4.0"
Suranaree University of Technology, Nakhon Ratchasima, Thailand, July 25-26, 2019
dynamic and steady-state process simulations, Piping and produce a 7-11%v/v ethanol while having an acceptable
Instrumentation Diagram (P&ID), materials of residual substrate of 5 g/L or less. Dynamic simulation of
construction including performance of Hazard and the fermentation is achieved using MATLAB and
Operability studies (HAZOP) to draft and revise the P&ID Polymath educational versions software. Following a
in a cyclic review process. Various educational, free trial modified Monod kinetic model with substrate and product
and free-open source software are used such as MATLAB, inhibition, parameters used are um = 2.3/hr, Ks = 1.0
Polymath, MathCAD, COCO (Cape-Open-to-Cape-Open), kg/m3, K2 = 1.0 kg/m3, Yx/s = 0.5 g/g, Yx/p = 0.15 g/g , with
MS Visio to deliver process design and engineering volumetric feeding flowrates of process water, F1 = 11
requirements12. m3/hr, sugar cane juice, F2 = 0.15.exp(0.02.t) and finally
the yeast cell mass, F3 = 5 m3/hr. The cane juice flowrate is
B. Process Description and Battery Limit an exponential function with time which increases the
0
The battery limit of the design is limited to water Brix of the mash during the fermentation mixing14.
treatment/ RO, feedstock storage, fermentation and the MATLAB simulation was achieved using ode45 function
entire downstream processing from the Beer column, the solving via the Runge-Kutta method.
Rectifier to the Dehydration operation as shown in Figure Simultaneous biochemical reactions taking place
1. Feedstock tanks are provided for molasses and cane during ethanol fermentation of Saccharomyces cerevisiae
juice which are assigned to a particular fermenter. To are;
ensure continuous operation and supply of yeast, two (2) Sucrose Hydrolysis:
yeast cultivation tanks are installed aside from the 𝐶12 𝐻22 𝑂12 + 𝐻2 𝑂 → 𝐶6 𝐻12 𝑂6+ 𝐶6 𝐻12 𝑂6
commercial dry yeast supply. Water treatment and RO Ethanol fermentation:
units produce the entire process/ cooling water and boiler 𝐶6 𝐻12 𝑂6 → 2𝐶2 𝐻5 𝑂𝐻 + 2𝐶𝑂2
water supply of the plant. After fermentation, the mash is Material Balance:
pumped directly to the Beer tank and then to the Beer Unsteady-state mass balances for the fed-batch
Column while the yeast may be recycled for fermentation are derived for the modeling and simulation
centrifugation. Ethanol-water condensate from the Beer specifically for the cell mass, substrate glucose, ethanol
Column is purified in the Rectifier Column to produce the product and volume of fermenter. The fermentation mixing
rectified spirit. Finally, the dehydration unit succeeds the is modeled with three (3) input streams consisting of
distillation operation to purify the rectified spirit to an process water, cane juice mash and yeast cell mass while
anhydrous ethanol product. ensuring gradual ramping of fermenter level (Figure 2).
F2
Water Treatment/
RO Beer Tank Cane Juice
F3
F1
Molasses Tank
Beer Column Cell Mass
Fermenter 1 Process Water
(Molasses)
Yeast
Rectifier
Cultivation
Vessel 1
Fermenter 2 Fermenter PHE
Yeast (cane juice)
Cultivation Ethanol
Vessel 2 Dehydration
Figure 1: Process Flow Diagram (PFD) of the Plant Figure 2: Fed-Batch Fermentation Flow Process
The 60% v/v ethanol concentration from the beer D. Dehydration Operation
column is fed to the second column called the Rectifier. Initially, the simulation of the dehydration operation
The rectifier further concentrates the ethanol concentration that produces anhydrous ethanol was achieved using
to a minimum of 96.5% v/v rectified spirit, producing a Azeotropic Distillation Process using COCO (Cape-Open-
total of 84.61 m3/hr for molasses fermented mash while to-Cape-Open) Process Simulator. To overcome the
68.15 m3/hr for sugar juice fermented mash. limitation of the software in simulating an adsorption
Lastly, the downstream simulation enables predicting process, a calculation is demonstrated instead using
changes in plant process conditions coming from educational versions of MathCAD which uses 3Å
unexpected perturbations. As a means to integrate process molecular sieve zeolite as the adsorbent. Specifically, the
engineering tools, this information is used in drafting and process will apply pressure swing adsorption (PSA) as the
reviewing the hazard and operability (HAZOP) studies. most economical operation having low-energy
requirements as well as short cycle-time operation23.
Table 4: Summary of Distillation Process, Tray and The process has two beds that operate at different
Column Specification13 pressures for dehydration. The first bed adsorbs the water
Feedstock Molasses Sugar Juice at high pressure while the other is regenerated at a lower
Feed Composition, %v/v 9 10 pressure. At higher pressure, more water molecules are
Temperature, ˚C 32 32
adsorbed leaving the purified ethanol at achieving the
Reflux Ratio 6 7.8
targeted product specification of 99.7% v/v anhydrous
Heat Capacity, Cp, kJ/kg.K 4.70 4.72 ethanol15. The process performs a simultaneous adsorption
Density, kg/m3 1199.3 1205.2 and regeneration or desorption of the bed which enables a
Viscosity, cP 0.464 0.464 continuous operation.
Volume Produced, m3/day 84.61 68.15
Tray & Column Specifications
Beer Rectifier
Column
Column Internal Sieve Tray Sieve Tray
Downcomer Area, m2 0.56 0.68
Net Area, m2 0.84 1.02
Hole Diameter, mm 8.0 8.0
Weir Height, mm 50 50
Weir Length, m 0.65 0.75
No. of Theoretical Stages 9 15
MOC AISI 304 AISI 304
Column Diameter 1.3 m 1.5 m
The 1st Thailand Biorefinery Conference
"The Future of Biorefinery for Thailand 4.0"
Suranaree University of Technology, Nakhon Ratchasima, Thailand, July 25-26, 2019
z = 3.5 m.
Adsorbent Specification z = 5 m.
Adsorbent Zeolite ccf1
water (BFW).
Table 6 shows specifications for raw, process/ cooling G. Piping and Instrumentation Diagram (P&ID)
and boiler water. Significant removal of TDS is achieved
in the simulation of RO unit with 97% salt rejection in P&ID construction was simultaneously generated with
process/ cooling water and 98.33 % in boiler feed water, the HAZOP studies. Critical instruments to be installed in
each having a recovery of 75%19. A high quality process the fermenter are real-time, in-situ refractometer, foam
water is needed during fermentation to prevent any kind of detection unit and real-time pH meter. These devices are
contamination. Moreover, a supplementary treatment for necessary for monitoring process specifications to achieve
boiler water is necessary to ensure an efficient process and selective growth conditions for yeast fermentation to
quality steam generation22. This procedure helps the control contamination. Other necessary devices installed
facility avoid costly plant downtime, expensive are temperature and level indicators, valves etc. Usual
maintenance fees, and boiler failure as a result of scaling, design of fluid transfer indicates a 2-pump system to
corrosion, and fouling of the boiler and downstream ensure continuous operation in the event of pump failure
equipment23. (Fig. 9).
PL-09
V-06
Specification17 PL-14
Cations
Calcium 668.8 11.7 0.07 P-8 F-01 E-01
PL-07
Magnesium 207.6 1.6 0.01 E-02
P-47
CWR-02
V-10
P-32 LI-01
E-9
E-13
Anions LI-02
P-19
E-3
V-05
PL-05
V-02 V-03
P-01
PL-02
P-55
P-03
PL-01
P-02
Silica 41.5 0.6 0.01 DL-03
DL-01
Parameters P-34
P-11