Sugar beet as a raw material for bioethanol production

Abstract

Overproduction of sugar causes a reduction in the acreage under sugar beet. That is why new non-food technologies for exploitation of agricultural products are sought. Utilization of beet for liquid fuel production could be one of them. The aim of experiments with sugar beet raw juice fermentation was to verify the possibility to return a part of distiller's slops back to the fermentation process and thereby to obtain stillage with higher content of dry solids. This would bring about energy savings during slops thickening and drying. Tests with recycling of different portions of stillage (20, 25 and 30%) back to the fermentation stage were carried out. No significant increase in dry solids content in mash was found and therefore no energy savings during thickening can be expected. The only savings can be made in water consumption that is replaced by slops.

Keywords

• sugar beet
• fermentation
• bioethanol
• etbe
• mtbe
• saccharomyces cerevisiae
• stillage recycling