Cane ethanol
Ethanol is generally available as a by-product of sugar production. It can be used as a
biofuel alternative to gasoline, and is widely used in cars in Brazil. It is a promising alternative to gasoline, and may become the primary product of sugarcane processing, rather than sugar.
A textbook on renewable energyda Rosa, A, Fundamentals of Renewable Energy Processes, 2005, Elsevier, ISBN 978-0-12-088510-7, pp. 501-502 describes the energy transformation:
At present, 75 tons of raw sugar cane are produced annually per hectare in Brazil. The cane delivered to the processing plant is called burned and cropped (b&c), and represents 77% of the mass of the raw cane. The reason for this reduction is that the stalks are separated from the leaves (which are burned and whose ashes are left in the field as fertilizer), and from the roots that remain in the ground to sprout for the next crop. Average cane production is, therefore, 58 tons of b&c per hectare per year.
Each ton of b&c yields 740 kg of juice (135 kg of sucrose and 605 kg of water) and 260 kg of moist bagasse (130 kg of dry bagasse). Since the higher heating value of sucrose is 16.5 M
J/kg, and that of the bagasse is 19.2 M
J/kg, the total heating value of a ton of b&c is 4.7 G
J of which 2.2 G
J come from the sucrose and 2.5 from the bagasse.
Per hectare per year, the biomass produced corresponds to 0.27 T
J. This is equivalent to 0.86 W per square meter. Assuming an average insolation of 225 W per square meter, the photosynthetic efficiency of sugar cane is 0.38%.
The 135 kg of sucrose found in 1 ton of b&c are transformed into 70 litres of ethanol with a combustion energy of 1.7 G
J. The practical sucrose-ethanol conversion efficiency is, therefore, 76% (compare with the theoretical 97%).
One hectare of sugar cane yields 4,000 litres of ethanol per year (without any additional energy input, because the bagasse produced exceeds the amount needed to distill the final product). This however does not include the energy used in tilling, transportation, and so on. Thus, the solar energy-to-ethanol conversion efficiency is 0.13%.
Sugarcane as food
In most countries where sugarcane is cultivated, there are several foods and popular dishes derived directly from it, such as:
- Raw sugarcane: chewed to extract the juice
- Sugarcane juice: a combination of fresh juice, extracted by hand or small mills, with a touch of lemon and ice to make a popular drink, known variously as ganne ka rass, guarab, guarapa, guarapo, papelón, aseer asab, Ganna sharbat, mosto and caldo de cana
- Cachaça: the most popular distilled alcoholic beverage in Brazil; a liquor made of the distillation of sugarcane
- Jaggery: a solidified molasses, known as Gur or Gud in India, traditionally produced by evaporating juice to make a thick sludge and then cooling and molding it in buckets. Modern production partially freeze dries the juice to reduce caramelization and lighten its color. It is used as sweetener in cooking traditional entrees, sweets and desserts.
- Panela: solid pieces of sucrose and fructose obtained from the boiling and evaporation of sugarcane juice; a food staple in Colombia and other countries in South and Central America
- Molasses: used as a sweetener and a syrup accompanying other foods, such as cheese or cookies
- Rapadura: a sweet flour which is one of the simplest refinings of sugarcane juice
- Rum: especially in the Caribbean
- Falernum: a sweet, and lightly alcoholic drink made from sugar cane juice.
- Syrup: a traditional sweetener in soft drinks, now largely supplanted (in the US at least) by high-fructose corn syrup, which is less expensive because of subsidies.
- Rock candy: crystallized cane juice
- Sayur Nganten : name of Indonesian soup made of trubuk stem (Saccharum edule).
See also
References
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- Bailey, L. H. and Bailey, E. Z. 1976. Hortus Third: A Concise Dictionary of Plants Cultivated in the United States and Canada. MacMillan Publishing Company, New York
External links
Industry organizations