NARRATIVE REPORT

Green Future Innovation, Inc continuous to excel further in the production of bio-ethanol

with its raw material sugar cane. There are various unit operations applied in the production of

company’s final product with a desired purity, one of which are fermentation and distillation.

Alcohol fermentation is a biological process by which sugar is converted into alcohol and carbon

dioxide. Distillation is renowned as the oldest separation process and widely used unit operation

in industry. (Gean Koplis, 2014) defined distillation as separation process that is used to separate

various components of a liquid solution which depends upon the distribution of the components

between vapor phase and a liquid phase. This separation process involves separation of a liquid

or vapor mixture regarding on different boiling point, relative volatility, and fractions of desired

purity by application and removal of heat.

The first week of the on-the-job training I were deployed in the distillery department

which consist of fermentation and distillation process. Engr. Jhovane, supervisor at that time

warmly welcomed and let us explore and tour the functions and responsibilities of every tanks

and equipment in fermentation and distillation process such as the yeast cultivation vessels

(1,2,3,&4), yeast activation tanks (A&B), fermentation tanks (1,2,3), beerwell, mash charger,

yeast or centrifuge separator, mash column(also known as stripping section and under vacuum),

rectifying and dehydration column, purification column (High boiling and simmering),sieve beds

(alternating function of adsorption and regeneration for zeolite reusing), and evaporator.

II. Yeast Propagation and Cultivation Preparation

At 2 in the afternoon Sir Roland Sario, the microbiologist demonstrated the three stages in yeast

propagation with different volume. In the fermentation laboratory I were able to witnessed the
different principle parameters to be met in order to propagate yeast such as (1) pH, since yeast is

acidophilic, the yeast will propagate more in an acidic environment ranging 4.2-4.5;(2) %alcohol

target is 8% v/v alcohol;(3) free amino nitrogen, this will signify the amount of nutrients to be

added in the mixture solution which a low value is a must so because it will cause to a low

amount of yeast propagated, if high amount, there will be addition of nutrients such as urea,

penicilin, Mvc and etc;(4) yeast cell count, a minimum 200 ppm cell count of yeast should be

propagated in order to pass to the next step;(5) volatile acidity, it is tested to know the amount of

existing bacteria and impurities in the solution that may be toxic to the growth of yeast.

With the information relayed by Sir Roland Sario, it is clear to me that the principle of three

stages in yeast propagation with different volumes is to not let the yeast be shocked to its

environment, propagate more yeast in order to yield a large amount of sugar for the ethanol.

III. Fermentation Process

It is my 2nd day in the distillery department, here Sir Robert Aguinaldo introduced the process

flow diagram, and important parameters to be monitored. After such, I asked what is the

correlation of the parameters to the production of ethanol, how to cope with troubleshoots, what

to do during shutdowns, and start-ups.

For the parameters,