Análisis comparativo del consumo de recursos en procesos que siguen una ruta tradicional o biotecnológica.

Abstract

The environmental impact caused by fossil fuels has promoted the development of biofuels. Second generation bioethanol is an interesting biofuel because of use lignocellulosic material, however, during the hydrolysis presents technological difficulties in obtaining fermentable sugars, especially glucose. Therefore, this work was carried on, based on bibliographic information, to identify the main resources and estimate the quantities used in the classical and biotechnological hydrolysis of 1 kg of sugarcane bagasse, which present glucose yields of 91% and 40%, respectively. The processes were arranged in flow diagrams and with mass balances the quantities of inputs for each stage were calculated. As a result, it was determined that the biotechnological hydrolysis presented the highest reagents consumption around of 1.4 kg, unlike the chemical hydrolysis that only used sulfuric acid (489 g). In the enzymatic route, a high requirement of cane bagasse was also evidenced, since for each kilogram of substrate to be hydrolyzed, 4 additional kilograms were processed to obtain cellulase extracts. The energy consumption in the biotechnological route was 5 times greater than energy consumption in the acid route, due to the sterilization of the culture media. Finally, it was estimated that the effluents of the biotechnological route were 1.5 times the volume calculated in the classic route, however, the load of reagents may be low because they are salts that are used by microorganisms.