Journal of Fundamentals of Renewable Energy and Applications
Open Access
ISSN: 2090-4541
+44 1300 500008
ISSN: 2090-4541
+44 1300 500008
Eleni Gomes
Posters-Accepted Abstracts: J Fundam Renewable Energy Appl
During years 2014/2015, an area of 9000 acres was planted with cane sugar in Brazil, which corresponds to 659 million tons
of cane and that will produce 38 million tons of sugar and 28 billion liters of ethanol. Bioethanol is a renewable fuel and its
consumption in Brazil is by blends of ethanol and gasoline (22%) or as single fuel for flex fuel vehicles. The increase in demand for
this biofuel and to avoid the expansion area planted with sugarcane, which has been growing 3% per year, the cellulosic ethanol
(2G ethanol) production is a promising alternative. The sugar and ethanol industry in 2014 generated about 155 million tons of
straw and bagasse potentially capable of generating up sugar to produce 442 billion liters/year of ethanol. In October 2014, the
first commercial-scale ethanol-2G plant (GranBio) has initiate with production capacity of 82 million liters of ethanol per year
(21.6 million US gallons) in Alagoas, northeastern Brazil. The biodiesel or alkyl-esters produced by transesterification reactions
between triglycerides and alcohol, is the second alternative biofuel in Brazil but the current production capacity meets only
170 million liters/year, which correspond to 17% of the demand, considering the mix B2. The raw materials used for biodiesel
production has been the oils of palm, babassu, soybean and sunflower. Brazil currently has 89 biodiesel production plants spread
across the country. Many of them use transesterification by methyl route. However, due to high production of ethanol in the
country, the ethylic route has been proposed, associated with new catalysis methods such as enzyme and solid.