Sugarcane | EPFL Graph Search

Sugarcane or sugar cane is a species of (often hybrid) tall, perennial grass (in the genus Saccharum, tribe Andropogoneae) that is used for sugar production. The plants are 2–6 m (6–20 ft) tall with stout, jointed, fibrous stalks that are rich in sucrose, which accumulates in the stalk internodes. Sugarcanes belong to the grass family, Poaceae, an economically important flowering plant family that includes maize, wheat, rice, and sorghum, and many forage crops. It is native to the warm temperate and tropical regions of India, Southeast Asia, and New Guinea. Grown in tropical and subtropical regions, sugarcane is the world's largest crop by production quantity, totaling 1.9 billion tonnes in 2020, with Brazil accounting for 40% of the world total. Sugarcane accounts for 79% of sugar produced globally (most of the rest is made from sugar beets). About 70% of the sugar produced comes from Saccharum officinarum and its hybrids. All sugarcane species can interbreed, and the majo

Allometric equations for non-destructive biomass estimation of early stage sugarcane plants – Case study in Pernambuco, northeastern Brazil

Hadrien Baecher

Brazil recently became the 5th world power, and with a tremendous growing of its population and the resulting needs, this country is facing challenges in providing energy to every sector of its socio-economical activity. The actual global warming concern and the inevitable decline of fossil energy resources has lead to the research and development of new renewable energy sources as well as to the improvement of the already existing ones. Historically, sugarcane occupies a prominent place among the agricultural crops in Brazil and is in a period of increasing demand. The importance of this crop for the Brazilian economy makes research and development of new varieties and new agricultural techniques a priority. This study aimed to develop a non-destructive method to assess biomass production of live sugarcane plantations at an early stage of development. It highlighted the more relevant non-destructive parameters at different stages of the crop (60, 90, 120 days after planting) to evaluate above-ground biomass by establishing multiple linear regression models. The relevance of the following parameters were established: the diameter at ground level and the dimensions of the leaf F(0). The study was first carried out considering sugarcane as a species and then by comparing equations for five different sugarcane genotypes (varieties). It also assessed the feasibility of developing allometric equations that would be a useful tool to estimate root biomass from more easily measured above-ground plant parameters.

2013

Environmental impact assessment of lignocellulosic lactic acid production: Integrated with existing sugar mills

Pavel Vaskan

Lactic acid (LA) is considered for the diversification and value addition to sugar industry in South Africa, through a bioconversion of sugarcane bagasse and leaves. A bioconversion process was modeled in Aspen Plus (R) V8.6 and its environmental impacts were evaluated using the Life Cycle Assessment method using SimaPro (R) considering its integration into existing South African Sugar mills. The life cycle approach took into account the whole sugar production chain, including sugarcane cultivation stage, harvesting and transportation of sugarcane, sugar mill, and LA production. The life cycle inventories of the sugarcane cultivation and sugar mill were obtained from literature while Aspen Plus (R) simulation data were used for the LA production. The ecoinvent database of SimaPro (R) was used for all external inputs and fossil-based LA production. Environmental impacts of the biobased and fossil based LA productions were assessed and compared. The total environmental savings of the major impact categories obtained upon replacing a tonne of fossil-based LA with biobased LA are: 3925.65 kg CO2 eq. of global warming potential; 1742.05 kg fossil fuel eq. of abiotic depletion potential; 1296.16 kg 1,4-DB eq. of human toxicity potential; 397.79 kBq U-235 eq. of ionizing radiation potential; 253.97 kg Fe eq. of metal depletion potential; 43.48 kg 1,4-DB eq. of marine aquatic ecotoxicity potential; 42.97 kg 1,4-DB eq. of fresh water aquatic ecotoxicity potential and 18.23 kg SO2 eq. of acidification potential. Auxiliary chemicals used in the biobased LA production are most relevant to the total environmental impacts. Thus, biobased LA production has significantly reduced the impact on the environment, giving 80-99% environmental savings compared to fossil-derived LA. (C) 2016 Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Institution of Chemical Engineers2016

Reduction of process steam demand and water-usage through heat integration in sugar and ethanol production from sugarcane - Evaluation of different plant configurations

Adriano Viana Ensinas

The sugarcane industry represents one of the most important economic activities in Brazil producing sugar and ethanol for the internal and external markets. There are also plants dedicated only to ethanol production. The aim of this study is to accomplish a joint assessment to evaluate the reduction of process steam demand and water usage obtained through heat integration and an exergy analysis to quantify the reduction in irreversibility generation owing to heat integration procedure. Two configurations of plant were analysed Case I - all sugarcane juice is destined to produce ethanol without sugar production and Case II - distribution of 50%/50% of total recoverable sugars in sugar and ethanol production. Simulations in ASPEN PLUS (R) software were performed in order to evaluate the mass and energy balances and heat integration using the Pinch Method was applied in order to minimize the utilities consumption. The results showed that heat integration promoted a reduction in steam consumption of 35% approximately, while the reduction in water consumption (water collecting requirement) was 24 and 13% in comparison to the conventional cases without heat integration. (c) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

2017

Environmental impact assessment of lignocellulosic lactic acid production: Integrated with existing sugar mills

Pavel Vaskan

Institution of Chemical Engineers2016