MIRCENJournal, 1987, 3, 135-142

Production of fuel ethanol from cassava

P. Atthasampunna*, P. Somchai, A. Eur-aree & S. Artjariyasripong
Thailand Institute of Scientific and Technological Research, 196 Phahonyothin Road, Bangkok 10900, Thailand

Received 5 January 1987; accepted 12 January 1987

Introduction

The technology for the production of ethanol from starch materials involves cooking, liquefaction, saccharification, fermentation, and distillation. The basic technology in the process has been well defined but could be improved by introducing systems which require less energy, particularly in the starch conversion and distillation operations. Application of low-energy requirement systems for the production of ethanol should make it more attractive as liquid fuel. The aim of the present investigation for producing fuel ethanol from cassava is to establish low-energy requirement systems, i.e. low-temperature cooking, pressurized distillation. Two feasible systems have been tested in an alcohol pilot plant of capacity 1500-liter anhydrous ethanol per day, specially designed for the purpose (Fig. 1).
Material and methods

Raw material preparation Fresh cassava roots used were obtained from the northeastern and eastern regions of Thailand at different harvesting times in dry and wet seasons from April to November. Processing quantity per experiment was between 8.5 and 9.4 tonnes of fresh roots per operating day. The roots were mechanically peeled, washed and crushed using the pilot plant equipments, each of the capacity of 5 tonnes per hour. Pretreatment step Since the aim of the study is to reduce the energy consumed in the step of converting starch to fermentable sugars, a modified procedure of the traditional process was adopted for testing. The enzymes used to carry out the conversion of cassava starch were the product of Novo: Termamyl 120 L which is an a-amylase preparation and SAN 150 L which is a glucoamylase. The process flow diagram for two different pretreatment methods is shown in Fig. 2.
Traditional method (high-temperature cooking): The crushed cassava was added to water (80~ in a 13 m 3 cooking tank at a ratio of
* To whom correspondence should be addressed. ~) Oxford University Press 1987

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P. Atthasampunna, P. Somchai, A. Eur-aree and S. Artjariyasripong

PRETREATMENT S E C T I O N

FERMENTATION SECTION

YlI
WASTE WATER TREATMENT SECTION

DISTILLATION SECTION

Fig. 1 Alcohol pilot-plant flow sheet. (1) Peeler; (2) washer; (3) slicer; (4) crusher; (5) cookingtank; (6) saccharifying tank; (7) seed tank; (8) fermenter; (9) screen filter; (10) broth-out tank; (11) mashconcentrationcolumn; (12) dehydrationcolumn; (13) dehydrant decanter; (14) alcoholcheckingtank; (15) alcoholstorage tank; (16) waste water tank; (17) sup tank; (18) sludgetank; (19) decanter; (20) evaporator; (21) dryer. approximately 0.9:1. The a-amylase dosage of 0.6 l/ton starch was added and the mixture was held for 30 min at 80~ The mash was then heated by direct steam injection to 128~ and held for 30 min. The cooked mash was pumped to a 13 m 3 saccharifying tank in which the mash was cooled down and the pH adjusted to 4.2 with sulphuric acid. When the temperature in the liquefied mash had reached 55~ the glucoamylase was added at concentration of 1.3 l/ton starch, and the saccharifying temperature was maintained at 55~ for 60 min. Thereafter the saccharified mash was cooled to 32~ and was pumped to the fermentation tank. Modified method (low-temperature cooking): An alternative process without the pressure-cooking step is required. The additions of a-amylase and glucoamylase were equal to those of the high-temperature cooking process but the reaction time for the two enzymes was longer. The process used was the same as that previously described for the traditional process except for the following: (1) liquefaction time being 1 h at 80~ (2) no pressure-cooking step; and (3) saccharification time being 2 h at 55~

Fermentation
The yeast used in the fermentation was a strain of Saccharomyces cerevisiae var. Hakken 1. The preparation of seed culture was conducted in two stages. A mature yeast culture was inoculated into YM broth. After incubation, the yeast culture was transferred into active seed-culture medium and incubated on a shaker for 24 h; the contents were then transferred to a 2 m 3 seed tank containing about 1.6 m 3 of molasses

Production of fuel ethanol from cassava 137

medium. The yeast was allowed to grow for 24 h at 30~ after which it was used to inoculate the main mash in the fermentation tank (yeast population of approximately 2 x 108 cell/ml). Fermentation was carried out batchwise in a series of four fermentation tanks, each of 25 m 3 capacity with a working volume of 18 to 21 m 3. Fermentation temperature was maintained at 30 to 32~ for 72 h. Samples were taken out at each 24-h interval. At the end of the fermentation period, the fermented mash was passed through the screen filter to remove solid residues and then pumped to the broth-out tank, ready for distillation.

Distillation
The simplified distillation system tested in this study has been developed by Kyowa Hakko Kogyo Co., Ltd., Japan. This distillation process is noted for its steam-saving. Traditional atmospheric distillation system was also performed as control. The pilot plant has two distillation columns: the mash column and concentration

(a) amylase
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Fig. 2 Pretreatment of cassava mash: (a) low-temperature cooking; (b) high-temperature cooking.

138

P. Atthasampunna, P. Somchai, A. Eur-aree and S. Artjariyasripong

column combining into one column, and dehydration column forming the second one. The production capacity is 1500 1 of anhydrous ethanol per day (Fig. 1). The procedure for the simplified distillation system was to take the mash containing about 8% (v/v) ethanol and preheat it in the heat exchanger before feeding it into the mash-concentration column. This combined column was operated under a controlled pressure of 1.4 kg/cm2. The vapour from the column top was used as the heat source for the dehydration column. The dehydration column was operated under atmospheric pressure on the ternary azeotropic system, with benzene used as the entrainer. Ethanol of at least 99.5% (v/v) concentration was obtained from the bottom of the dehydration column.An alcohol meter was used to determine the ethanol content in the distillate.

Analytical methods
AOAC methods (Williams 1984) were employed to determine the chemical composition of fresh cassava. Total sugar was determined by hydrolysis with 2.4 i hydrochloric acid in a boiling water bath for 2.5 h, followed by determination of reducing sugar (as glucose) by copper reduction based on the method of Nelson (1944). Ethanol and fusel oil were measured by gas chromatography methods, and water by the Karl Fischer method.
Results and discussion

Composition of cassava roots

Forty-six lots of cassava roots obtained from the northeastern and eastern regions of Thailand were chemically analyzed. The result is given in Table 1. There was considerable variation in the composition of cassava according to different harvesting time as seen from the standard deviations provided in Table 1. The roots harvested during rainy season usually contained higher moisture content and lower starch content while those reaped in dry season had lower moisture content and higher starch content.
Table 1 Averge composition of cassava roots

Component Starch Reducingsugar Fibre Protein, fat, ash, etc. Water

Concentration (% wet basis) 32.44 1.44 0.88 1.63 63.61

Standard deviation + 5.05 + 0.47 + 0.13 + 0.18 + 5.35

Fermentation tests
Data on fermentation tests of several lots of fresh cassava roots, under the experimental conditions described earlier, are presented in Table 2. It is evident that the yields of ethanol are not affected by conditions in starch conversion. By applying traditional high-temperature cooking, the fermented mash at 72-h fermentations contained 8.5 to 9.5% (v/v) ethanol while the fermentation efficiency was between 85.5 and 94.3%. The fermentation results of the low-temperature cooking were just as

Production of fuel ethanol from cassava 139

Table 2 Fermentation results Starch-conversionprocess Batch Initial Fermentation Final Ethanol Fermentation total sugar volume total sugar (% v/v) efficiency* (% w/v) (x m3) (%w/v) (%) High-temperature cooking 1 2 3 4 5 Low-temperature cooking
6

15.76 16.22 16.66 16.94 16.94 15.40 16.39 17.67

19.6 19.6 18.9 21.3 19.3 19.3 19.3 18.4

0.63 0.78 1.17 1.09 1.29 1.15 1.39 1.37

8.6 8.5 9.4 9.0 9.5 8.7 8.5 9.3

88.26 85.48 94.23 88.17 94.26 94.80 87.99 88.60

7 8 * Fermentation efficiency(%) =

Ethanol produced 100 Sugar consumed x 0.644

good as those of high-temperature cooking, obtaining 8.5 to 9.3% (v/v) ethanol and 88.6 to 94.8% fermentation efficiency. These results show that a temperature higher than 80~ is not required in the starch-conversion process by enzymes in order to achieve the same result as that of high-temperature cooking. In all fermentation tests, no attempt was made to optimize the amount of enzyme being added. Since fresh cassava roots were used, no additional fermentation nutrient was required. Typical fermentation processes for the low- and high-temperature pretreatments are shown in Fig. 3. Both processes showed a similar decrease in total sugars during the production of ethanol and yeast cell mass. At the end of 72 h, total residual sugar remained at about 1.39% (w/v) and 0.78% (w/v), for the low- (Fig. 3a) and the high- (Fig. 3b) temperature pre-treatments. Yeast population, determined by haemacytometer counting, reached a maximum of about 2 108/ml for the former process and 2.7 10S/ml for the latter. Final cell counts appeared to be independent of the size of inoculum.

Distillation tests
Two distillation systems--atmospheric distillation and pressurized distillation--were performed as described in Materials and Methods using pilot-plant distillation facilities. Distillation under pressure was a batch operation and had an efficiency of 84.8 to 91.'7% (Table 3). The average batch distillation efficiency for eight mashes under normal pressure was 88.4% but was 96.6% if operated continuously for five consecutive days. The ethanol product ranged from 99.5 to 99.8% (v/v) in all cases. Impurities in the distillate measured by gas chromatography methods are shown in Table 4.

Energy-saving effects
For every cassava-to-ethanol process, the energy-saving effects were analyzed. Though determination of the energy consumption was carried out at the time when the pilot plant was not in perfect condition, a considerable fuel reduction was recorded as shown in Table 5. When the low-temperature cooking process was employed, the steam consumption could be reduced by 47% as compared with the

140 P. Atthasampunna, P. Somchai, A. Eur-aree and S. Artjariyasripong

Table 3 Distillation data
Distillation operation Traditional batch process continuous process Simplified batch process batch process Distillation efficiency (%) = No. of batches Distillation efficiency*

(%)

8 5 2 (control) Ethanol in distillate x Ethanol in fermented mash feed

88.42 96.58 84.8 91.7

100.

high-temperature cooking process. Also, the pressurized distillation method could save about 42% of steam consumption against the atmospheric distillation process. Thus, the steam consumed for the traditional process of both cooking and distillation amounted to 8.33 kg steam per liter of anhydrous ethanol. By applying the alternative process consisting of low-temperature cooking and pressurized distillation, the steam consumption per liter of anhydrous ethanol was reduced from 8.33 to 4.67 kg. In other

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Production of fuel ethanol from cassava 141

Table 4 Analytical data of impurities in the distillate of two batches by gas
chromatography* Component Acetaldehyde Acetone Acetal Benzene Propan-l-ol Butan-2-ol Water (by Karl Fischer method) Batch A % (w/w) 0.0004 0.0022 0.012 0.0048 0.1301 0.36 Batch B % (w/w) 0.0002 0.058 0.016 0.005 0.025 0.40 column temperature, 70~

, Column: PEG-400; column length, 2 m; injection temperature, ll0~

Table 5 Energy-saving effects

Processing step Starch conversion cooking temperature liquefaction-~-amylase saccharificafion-glucoamylase steam consumption (kg/l anhydrous ethanol) Distillation mash-concentration column dehydration column steam consumption (kg/l anhydrous ethanol) Traditional process 128~ 30 rain 80~ 30 rain 55~ 60 min 3.53 atmospheric atmospheric 4.80 Alternative process none 80~ 60 min 55~ 120 rain 1.87 pressurized atmospheric 2.80

words, the low-energy system requires 2880 kcal (4.67 616.7 kcal/kg) to produce one liter of anhydrous ethanol which itself contains the energy equivalent to 5590 kcal. Besides the considerable saving in the amount of steam required, the application of low-temperature cooking process could reduce the high investment cost on pressurized, high-temperature pre-treatment. Also, for the pressurized distillation system, the anhydrous ethanol is obtained without the use of a recovery column, thus again saving investment in the plant.

Acknowledgements
The authors wish to acknowledge with thanks the support contributed by the Governments of Thailand and Japan, the Japanese Association of Industrial Fermentation and its four member companies, namely Kyowa Hakko Kogyo Co., Ltd., Takara Shuzo Co., Ltd., Sanraku-Ocean Co., Ltd. and Godo Shusei Co., Ltd. Also appreciations are hereby expressed to the laboratory of Kyowa Hakko Kogyo Co., Ltd. for its kind cooperation in the ethanol analyses.

References
NELSON, N. 1944 A photometric adaptation of the Somogyi method for the determination of glucose. Journal of Biological Chemistry 153, 375-380.

142

P. Atthasampunna, P. Somchai, A. Eur-aree and S. Artjariyasripong

WILLIAMS,S. (ed.). 1984 Official Methods of Analysis of the Association of Official Agricultural Chemists, 14th edn, Association of Official Agricultural Chemists, Washington, D.C.

Summary
Ethanol production from fresh cassava roots using a low-temperature process was evaluated on a pilot-plant scale. The application of low-temperature cooking to cassava starch followed by a dual enzyme action resulted in an ethanol yield comparable to that of a traditional hightemperature cooking process. Pressurized distillation gave a satisfactory recovery efficiency of ethanol but was slightly lower than that obtained from atmospheric pressure distillation. Over 40% of the normal steam consumption was saved by adopting the low-temperature cooking and pressurized distillation systems in the cassava-to-ethanol process. The yield of anhydrous ethanol varied with the starch content in fresh cassava roots and was in the range of 185 to 200 liters per tonne.

R6sum~
La production d'6thanol h partir de racines fraiches de cassava comme mati~re premiere, basse temp6rature, a 6t6 6valu6e ~ l'6chelle de plante d'essai. L'utilisation de temp6rature basse pour le traitement de l'amidon de cassava, suivi d'une double action enzymatique, a r6sult6 en un rendement d'6thanol comparable a celui obtenu par le proc6d6 traditionel a temp6rature 61ev6e. : La destilation sous pression s'est pr6sent6e satisfaisante en ce qui concerne le rendement en 6thanol. Cependant, celui-ci s'est montr616g~rement inf6rieur h celui obtenu par destilation fi la pression atmosph6rique. Une 6conomie d'6nergie en forme de vapeur d'eau de plus de 40% a 6t6 le r6sultat de l'emploi de basse temperature pour le traitement de l'amidon de cassava et du proc6d6 de destilation sous pression dans la production d'6thanol ~ partir de racines de cassava. Le rendement en 6thanol anhydre a vari6 selon le contenue en amidon de la matiSre premiere, en oscillant entre 185 et 200 litres par tonne de racines de cassava.

Resumen
La producci6n de etanol a partir de raices frescas de cassava como materia prima, empleando un procedimiento a baja temperatura, ha sido evaluada a la escala de planta piloto. E1 empleo de baja temperatura en el tratamiento del almid6n de cassava, sequido de una doble acci6n enzim~itica ha resultado en un rendimiento de etanol comparable al obtenido con el procedimiento tradicional de elevada temperatura. La destilaci6n bajo presi6n ha presentado un rendimiento de etanol satisfactorio, aunque ligeramente inferior al obtenido en la destilaci6n a la presi6n atmosf6rica. Se ahorro m~is de un 40% de consumo de energia en forma de vapor de agua al adoptar el tratamiento del almid6n a baja temperatura y el proceso de destilaci6n bajo presi6n en la producci6n de etanol a partir de cassava. E1 rendimiento de etanol anhidro vari6 segtin el contenido de almid6n de la materia prima, oscilando entre 185 a 200 litros pot tonelada de cassava.