ETHANOL PRODUCTION FROM COCOA

MUCYLAGUS AND SUGAR CANE

1
Bravo Reyes Carlos Alberto , Muñoz Bolaños Luisa Fernanda, Ramírez Blanco Andrés Felipe 3
1 2
cabravor@unal.edu.co ,lufmunozbo@unal.edu.co , anframirezbl@unal.edu.co 3

Department of Chemical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Architecture

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ABSTRACT:
The project seeks to theoretically develop the processes of obtaining Ethanol from two raw materials such as sugarcane and cocoa Mucilage using the same transformation technology
contextualizing the comparison, current production in the country with an analysis of market as well as a description of the logistics that will be taken into account in the transformation of the
raw material, finally a simulation of the process is carried out together with its respective economic, social and environmental analysis.

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INTRODUCTION: ENVIRONMRNTAL ANALYSIS

The environmental analysis is carried out using the WAR waste reduction
In Colombia, 280,000 tons of sugarcane and 60,314 tons of cocoa are produced algorithm. The Simulation allows to give the result of Analysis per
each year giving employment and sustenance to more than 60,000 families in the kilogram of final product of the process.
country [1]. On the one hand sugar cane is grown mainly in the departments of Valle PEI WASTE STREAM
del Cauca, Cauca, Risaralda, Caldas and Quindío Data provided by Asocaña and
Fedecacao respectively. Now, comparing sugarcane and panela, it is said that there 2.00E+00

are no marked differences in terms of varieties [2]. The panela cane is produced in 1.80E+00
1.60E+00
the country in the departments of Antioquia, Cundinamarca, Santander, Boyacá, 1.40E+00

PEI/Kg producto
1.20E+00 PEI Sugar Cane
Nariño and Huila. Our project is located in the department of Santander which 1.00E+00

produces 60,535 tons per year. The department with the highest production of 8.00E-01
6.00E-01 PEI Mucilage
cocoa is Santander with 23042 tons / year of which 7540 tons / year comes from 4.00E-01
2.00E-01
the municipality of San Vicente de Chucurí being 28% of the departmental 0.00E+00
HTPI HTPE TTP ATP GWP ODP PCOP AP TOTAL
production and 11% of the national production, in this place we go to locate our
ECONOMIC ANALYSIS
project. The cocoa mucilage represents 14% of the total weight of the fruit [3]
therefore the production of mucilage for this municipality 1055.6 Ton / year and for
The economic analysis of the project was carried out with
this project we need 963.6 Ton / year of cocoa mucilage taking advantage of 91%
APPE of aspen taking the raw materials to determine the
of the waste of cocoa.
Project viability. In which information was entered on costs of
raw material, products, service fluids, cost of workers, time of
operation of the plant, flow. At an operating time of 8016hours
per year.
METODOLOGY
The ethanol production process from sugar cane and cocoa mucilage was
initially simulated in MATLAB to track the different reactions that take
place, which are acid hydrolysis, enzymatic hydrolysis and alcoholic
fermentation, where information was obtained on yields and reaction time,
Later, the ASPEN PLUS software was used to simulate the process with all
the equipment used for ethanol production, making use of the information
obtained in MATLAB. With the information obtained from the simulation,
the equipment, the flows and their compositions are completely known, so
that the economic analysis can be carried out using APEA, which requires
information from literature and the ASPEN simulation, at the time the
Cumulative NPV for Cocoa Mucilage
information is entered and the economic results are obtained, it is evident Cumulative NPV for Sugar Cane
0
that the projects are not economically viable, so we resort to modify the 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12
-5 -5
scale of production, to try to minimize costs, for this is observed the
VPN (M USD / año)

-10
NPV (M USD / año)

-10
national production of sugar cane and cocoa mucilage to know the -15
-20
maximum food and perform a sensitivity analysis which determined that for -15
-25
the proposed conditions the mucilage of cane needed greater production -20
-30

although this was not possible in Colombia, but sugar cane required greater -25
Year
-35
Year

modifications to be economically viable.

The production processes obtained from the economic analysis are 11.05
RESOULTS and 11.18 $ USD / kg of ethanol for cocoa mucilage and sugar cane
respectively against a market value of 0.801 $ USD / kg which makes
concentration (g sugars/ Yield (g ethanol/100 ml
Process 100ml substrate ) Process substrate) our project not competitive in the market.
Sugar Cane (simulation) 2,27 Sugar Cane (simulation) 2,27
Sugar Cane ( literature ) 8,25
Sugar Cane ( literature ) 3,93 SOCIAL ANALYSIS
Cocoa mucilage
(simulation) 22,22 Cocoa mucilage (simulation) 21,69
Cocoa mucilage (
literature ) 8,24 Cocoa mucilage ( literature ) 3,85

Component mass Sugar cane Cocoa

Location of San Vicente de Location of Güepsa in
flow (kg/h) mucilage Chucurí in santander Santander

Water 0,166 0,063

Ethanol 33,27 16,65 For the production plant, 25 people are used per day for the cocoa
%Ethanol (v/v) 99,60 99,69 mucilage plant and 35 people for the production of sugarcane,
resulting in 3 people / Ton and 1 person / Ton respectively.

CONCLUSIONS
*The process of obtaining ethanol through cocoa mucilage requires a less complex structure compared to that of sugar cane, which has a great impact on different aspects
of the project, such as economic and environmental, since it would require less investment, less energy consumption and less chemical treatment in the process.
*The production of ethanol from cocoa mucilage is more environmentally friendly with a total IEP of -5.56 PEI/kg Ethanol.
*In Colombia it is not profitable to obtain ethanol through the use of cocoa mucilage as raw material, this is due to the low production of this raw material.