Sweet Sorghum to Ethanol: Technology, Plant & Machinery

Feedstock, Field/Orchard/Plantation Crops/Residues, R & D Focus

February 10, 2010

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PRAJ, through its Development Center (Matrix- the Innovation Center), conducted studies and evaluated options for optimizing sweet sorghum based alcohol production. This effort was conducted in two phases:

· Agricultural trials and studies for evaluating suitability, technical feasibility and commercial viability of using various sweet sorghum varieties as direct feedstock for alcohol, either singly or in combination.

· Experimentation, trials and scale-up of viable process technology for industrial scale alcohol production.

After study, Praj established following advantages of using sweet sorghum for alcohol manufacturing.

1. Can be uniformly grown in warm, sunny weather.

2. The crop is a known to farmers.

3. Harvesting & cultivation practices are easier and are identical to sugar cane.

4. Sweet sorghum requires less water and fertilizers compared to sugarcane.

5. Crop cycle is short- 3.5 to 4 months. Usually, two cycles are possible from same piece of land annually, provided irrigation is possible.

6. Sweet Sorghum, on crushing to extract juice, gives bagasse as co-product which can be a principal source of energy for operation of distillery in the form of boiler fuel. This practically makes alcohol production free of energy cost and improves possibility of operation in remote areas. READ MORE

Advanced BioFuels USA