BY-PRATIK NIRUPAM DAS

A SHORT FERMENTATION PROCESS DESCRIPTION

(Process of ethanol formation from biomass)

Hydrolysis is the chemical reaction that converts the complex polysaccharides in the raw feedstock to simple sugars. In the biomass-to-bioethanol process, acids and enzymes are used to catalyze this reaction. Fermentation is a series of chemical reactions that convert sugars to ethanol. The fermentation reaction is caused by yeast or bacteria, which feed on the sugars. Ethanol and carbon dioxide are produced as the sugar is consumed.

Process Description. The basic processes for converting sugar and starch crops are well-known and used commercially today. While these types of plants generally have a greater value as food sources than as fuel sources there are some exceptions to this. For example, Brazil uses its huge crops of sugar cane to produce fuel for its transportation needs. The current U.S. fuel ethanol industry is based primarily on the starch in the kernels of feed corn, America's largest agricultural crop. 1. Biomass Handling. Biomass goes through a size-reduction step to make it easier to handle and to make the ethanol production process more efficient. For example, agricultural residues go through a grinding process and wood goes through a chipping process to achieve a uniform particle size. 2. Biomass Pretreatment. In this step, the hemicellulose fraction of the biomass is broken down into simple sugars. A chemical reaction called hydrolysis occurs when dilute sulfuric acid is mixed with the biomass feedstock. In this hydrolysis reaction, the complex chains of sugars that make up the hemicellulose are broken, releasing simple sugars. The complex hemicellulose sugars are converted to a mix of soluble five-carbon sugars, xylose and arabinose, and soluble six-carbon sugars, mannose and galactose. A small portion of the cellulose is also converted to glucose in this step. 3. Enzyme Production. The cellulase enzymes that are used to hydrolyze the cellulose fraction of the biomass are grown in this step. Alternatively the enzymes might be purchased from commercial enzyme companies. 4. Cellulose Hydrolysis. In this step, the remaining cellulose is hydrolyzed to glucose. In this enzymatic hydrolysis reaction, cellulase enzymes are used to break the chains of sugars that make up the cellulose, releasing glucose. Cellulose hydrolysis is also called cellulose saccharification because it produces sugars.

5. Glucose Fermentation. The glucose is converted to ethanol, through a process called fermentation. Fermentation is a series of chemical reactions that convert sugars to ethanol. The fermentation reaction is caused by yeast or bacteria, which feed on the sugars. As the sugars are consumed, ethanol and carbon dioxide are produced. 6. Pentose Fermentation. The hemicellulose fraction of biomass is rich in five-carbon sugars, which are also called pentoses. Xylose is the most prevalent pentose released by the hemicellulose hydrolysis reaction. In this step, xylose is fermented using Zymomonas mobilis or other genetically engineered bacteria. 7. Ethanol Recovery. The fermentation product from the glucose and pentose fermentation is called ethanol broth. In this step the ethanol is separated from the other components in the broth. A final dehydration step removes any remaining water from the ethanol. 8. Lignin Utilization. Lignin and other byproducts of the biomass-to-ethanol process can be used to produce the electricity required for the ethanol production process. Burning lignin actually creates more energy than needed and selling electricity may help the process economics. Converting cellulosic biomass to ethanol is currently too expensive to be used on a commercial scale. Researchers are working to improve the efficiency and economics of the ethanol production process by focusing their efforts on the two most challenging steps: Cellulose hydrolysis. The crystalline structure of cellulose makes it difficult to hydrolyze to simple sugars, ready for fermentation. Researchers are developing enzymes that work together to efficiently break down cellulose. Pentose fermentation. While there are a variety of yeast and bacteria that will ferment six-carbon sugars, most cannot easily ferment five-carbon sugars, which limits ethanol production from cellulosic biomass. Researchers are using genetic engineering to design microorganisms that can efficiently ferment both five- and six-carbon sugars to ethanol at the same time. ENZYME PRODUCTION ETHANOL

BIOMASS HANDLING

GLUCOSE FERMENTATION

ETHANOL RECOVERY

BIOMASS PRETREAMENT

CELLULOSE HYDROLYSIS PENTOSE FORMATION LIGININ UTILAISATION

OVERVIEW OF THE PROJECT

This setup is a small scale bio-ethanol production system. This system is named as INTEGRATED BIO-ETHANOL PRODUCTION SYSTEM. This is a small scale setup that is being devised to reduce the size of the bio-ethanol production system to make them fit on the roof tops of our houses. In spite of the decrease in the size of the system various changes are brought into the system to make it as efficient as the normal bio-ethanol production system is. The integrated bio-ethanol production system uses biomass as its feed that can include various things like sugarcane, corn, bagasse, straw, etc. These bio products are readily and easily available in various nearby places. These bio products are well enough sufficient to produce bio-ethanol for household use. As the household requirement of bio-ethanol is less than that of industrial requirement this system results as a very cost effective system ina long run. Now a days the most commonly used household fuel is LPG as it is a non renewable fuel the price of the fuel is increasing day by day in a rapid rate. We are considering price as a factor rather than considering vanishing natural resources or pollution because this system is designed for the usage of common man. Bio-ethanol is the alternative for which the common was in search of for years. Bio-ethanol is both pollution free and cost effective ,it is also renewable in nature. Bio-ethanol is liquid in nature which is different from the gaseous nature of LPG. So, bio-ethanol cannot be used in the normal burner that we use day to day. Specially designed ethanols burners are there that are used to burn this bio-ethanol. These burners are more effective fuel efficient than the gas stoves or gas burners we use .These are very portable and handy in nature and they do not require any cylinder to be connected to them.

MODEL DESCRIPTION
The whole model is divided into various parts that are integrated to a small scale. This whole setup is fit into a big Plastic box that maintains favourable condition and helps it to get protected from rain and sun. The various parts that this model includes are.

HOPPER-The biomass that is to be used for the process is fed into the hopper from the top of the plastic box. The hopper is the only part that is visible fout from the plastic box. ROLLER MILL-The feed from the hopper falls to the roller mill A roller mill has some roll pairs consisting of two rollers.Biomass is pressed by two rollers and crushed into small pieces. Around the rolls there are some trenches to improve the effectiveness of the crush. Also, the rotating speeds of two rollers are different in order to generate more stress on the corn. Finally, screening is implemented at the bottom of the mill. Then, the fine particles can pass the screen, and the big particles, which cannot match the required size, become the subject of the grinding again. The installation cost of roller mill is more but it consumes less power hammer mill can also be used to reduce installation cost. SENSOR OPERATED CONTAINER-After the rolling operation the feed is passed to a container.This container is specially designed and sensor operated. There is a gate and a sensor operated piston is fitted to the container ,when the container get filled up the piston pushes the materials towards the cooking chamber.Due to the pressure exerted by the piston the gate opens and material reaches cooking chamber and then again the gate get closed. COOKING CHAMBER-At the grinding step, the outer shell of grain is almost completely removed. Also, this step increases the surface area of each particle. These results make water penetrate through grain easily. However, there is still some undesirable area, which is hard to absorb water. To achieve effective enzymatic action, this micro-crystalline area should be removed. This is typically accomplished with two hot water processes. First, grain is treated with hot water, typically 85C for between 20 to 60 minutes. Then, super heated water, typically 110C, is introduced with high pressure. When the material is pushed into the cooking chamber it is subjected to 85C hot water, as we know this system is a integrated system so this temperature can affect other

equipments. So, to prevent this cooking chamber is bound by non conducting ceramic walls. These ceramic walls ensure the heat to remain inside the cooking chamber. FERMENTOR-The valve between the cooking chamber and fermentor opens when the material is ready for fermentation. Yeast is a facultative anaerobe. In an aerobic environment, it converts sugars into carbon dioxide and water. In an anaerobic environment, it converts sugars into carbon dioxide and ethanol. Thus, for an ethanol industry, it is important to exclude significant oxygen from its system. The fermentation process is a relatively slow process, but as we require bio-ethanol burners to fill once in a month we are not concerned about it. Propagation tanks can also be used to make the procedure faster but they are expensive in nature. After the completion of the process the liquid material is pumped out of the fermentor. DISTILLATION CHAMBER-After fermentation, we have to make the purity of ethanol higher. Distillation is one of the steps of the purifications. Distillation is the method to separate two liquid utilizing their different boiling points. However, to achieve high purification, several distillations are required. This is because all materials have intermolecular interactions with each other, and two materials will co-distil during distillation. This means that proportion between two materials, in this case ethanol and water can be changed, and still, there are two materials in layers, the liquid and the vapour layers. Here we use the azeotropic distillation method. In azeotropic distillation, a third chemical, called entrainer, is added into solution. In this ethanol case, usually benzene or cyclohexane is chosen. An entrainer has a strong chemical interacts with the chemical which we want to separate. Thus, when an entainer is introduced into solution, three phases appear. In the case of ethanol and water, one layer is almost pure water, another is pure ethanol, and the other is the mix of three compounds. However, some problems are included in this method. First, it is complicated. Next, it is easy to contaminate objective compounds with the entrainer. Also, safety issues of the entrainer remain such as flammability or toxicity. DEHYDRATION CHAMBER-From the distillation chamber the liquid material is passed into the dehydration chamber. This liquid material is noyhing else but bio-ethanol but containing 5% water.

As stated above, after traditional distillation, about 5% of water remains in ethanol. Especially, this water is a big problem for fuel ethanol because the presence of this amount of water enhances the molecular polarity of ethanol for example ethanol and gasolines are mixed, they separate into two phases, ethanol phase and gasoline phase. It is easy to imagine that this inhomogeneous fuel is not acceptable. For the dehydration purpose, zeolite molecular sieves are usually employed. Molecular sieves have many pores. While the entrance of the pore is small, the inside of it is relatively large. The pore size of the molecular sieves used for ethanol dehydration is generally around 3 Angstroms. This is very ideal to dehydrate ethanol because the diameter of ethanol molecule is 4.4 Angstroms, and the diameter of water molecule is 2.8 Angstroms. Thus, this pore can catch water molecules while it cannot catch ethanol molecules. BIO-ETHANOL STORAGE TANK-Storage of ethanol is a big issue as it gets evaporated very quickly, but the storage tank of integrated bio-ethanol production system is designed in such a way that bio-ethanol can be stored for more than a month with loss of only 1%.These tanks are made up of thermosetting plastic polymer than coated with fire proof clay. As ethanol is highly inflammable this clay coat protects it from catching fire. This bio-ethanol produced is than loaded into the bio-ethanol burners. Bio-Ethanol is classified as a Flammable Liquid Class 3, PG II and is regulated by various standards around the world. You must familiarise yourself and comply with these regulations in order to safely and legally store, handle, decant and use this fuel. BIO-ETHANOL BURNER-The ethanol burners have their own storage tank unlike the LPG burners. In a normal bio-ethanol burner 5 litres of fuel will last for 20 hrs.The smallest burners generates as much heat as operating 2.5 electric heaters? When we burn bio-ethanol, the heat is circulated by a super convection system. The combustion of bio ethanol creates heat, and a small amount of water vapour and steam. This means you don't need a chimney or flue to use your fireplace. As the burner holds the liquid fuel doesnt need to be connected to any external source of power such as electricity or gas lines.