Chapter 1

INTRODUCTION

Background of the Study

A long time ago until now, non-renewable fuels usage has a larger demand every year. In

recently, the world experiences a crisis of diminishing fossil fuel reserves throughout the world.

These include petroleum, gasolines, fossil fuel and other natural resources.

According to Gunasekaran and Raj (1999) natural resources such as petroleum have been

consumed at high rate over last decades. The heavy reliance on this fuel is bound to end, due to

environmental impact and to the fact that they might eventually run out.

Ethanol has been recognized as an important renewable and sustainable fuel source for

modern industries [Ward & Singh, 2002; Balat, 2007]. Ethanol is traditionally produced from

feedstock high in sugar and/or starch content. Most used feedstocks for fuel ethanol are wheat,

corn, sugar cane and sugar beet. The sugars can be fermented to ethanol, while starch first has to

be hydrolyzed to obtain free sugars.

The final step in producing ethanol is the recovery and purification steps. These methods

are the significant for an effective process tool in recovery of liquid mixtures and dehydration of

liquid hydrocarbons to yield high-purity organics most notably ethanol (Egloso, 2014).

Several processes were used before then to recover and purify ethanol into pure-grade.

These include hybrid distillation and pervaporation, perstraction, liquid-liquid extraction,

pervaporation, gas stripping, reverse osmosis and distillation [Shetty, Paliyath, Pometto & Levin,

2006; Sirkar, 2009; Vane, 2007].

 As eloquently stated by Shetty et al. (2006) ethanol distillation is the common recovery

and purification method. It implies the process of separating the various components of a liquid

solution which depends upon the distribution of these components between a vapor phases and a

liquid phase. It was a well-known process for producing bioethanol for to its high purity of the

product but rendered a high recovery costs (Egloso, 2014).

Even though alternative separation techniques are still developed, they cannot replace the

distillation process completely, which makes its future use indisputable. Attention hence should

be paid to distillation, as a small improvement in its design or performance has a large financial

impact.

Furthermore, Basso et al. (1996) and Ingledew (1995) stated that a great deal of effort has

gone into improving ethanol yield during the past 25 years, but there is still hope for increasing

throughput and reducing costs.

One way to improve the ethanol yield was through developing technologies that are viable

for bioethanol processes. As stated by Dr. Saturnina Halos in interview with the Manila Bulletin

(2007) the only way we can bring down the cost is through improved bioethanol technology.

Difficulties of the distillation process had overlooked over the pass years, these include the

distillation process time, energy cost of the process, and product’s usages limitations in which the

distillation cannot be use without electricity (Fletcher, 2018). Another hurdle that distillation

process faced is the lavished cost of the ethanol distillation system which guaranteed up to 14, 974

pesos in online shopping. (Lazada, 2009).

 Despite of difficulties, the researchers come up with a prototype design for improvised

technology of ethanol distillation using cassava starch as feedstock for producing ethanol. The

advantages of the existing design were: less cost of the materials, some of the resources were

recyclable materials, the processes in developing the design were uncomplicated, and the process

time in producing ethanol will not time-consuming. Conversely, the disadvantages of the

improvised technology were the product rate, concentration and purity of the ethanol and possible

outflow of the process.

Further investigations and searches will be done to surmount the aforementioned

disadvantages of ethanol distillation technology. The present study will have addressed these

insufficiencies by determining the design parameters of the improvised technology for ethanol

distillation such as the materials that will be used, optimum flow rate, tank capacity, cost of

material and optimum temperature. This study also will determine the efficiency and acceptability

of the improvised technology for ethanol distillation.

On the other hand, starch is the most abundant reserve carbohydrate mainly found in seed,

root, tuber, and fruit of plants (Shannon et al., 2009). Based on the study of Moorthy (2004), among

the vast sources of starches, only cassava and maize starches have been commercially exploited

for some time and continue to be major sources of starch. The cassava starch is easily extractable

since the tubers contain a very low quantity of proteins, fats, etc. Fresh roots contain about 30%

starch. Hence the extraction process is simple and the starch obtained is pure white in color if the

process is carried out properly. Since the lipid content in the starch is very little (<0.1%), the starch

and its derivatives have a non-cereal taste which is very desirable in many food products.

Cassava is chosen prior to other crops capable of producing alcohol due to its availability

throughout the country. Aside from these, it can obtain several quantity of alcohol as three times
rather than sweet potatoes and sugar cane (Combis et al, 1995). It is cheap and is indigenous which

costs about 30% from total production cost.

The main objective of this study was to develop an improvised technology for ethanol

distillation using cassava starch as feedstock. The yield of this research was to give out

environmental, socio-economic, political and health advantages since the prototype were designed

to expunge the abovementioned deficiencies and overlooked.

We are limited in ethanol-water purification in any single and simple distillation system to

the production of ethanol-water mixture. While some sort of drastic process intervention, further

ethanol purification becomes impossible. The question then becomes. What can we do to make it

possible to produce ethanol?