CTC is going to launch innovations in sugar and alcohol
Valor Econômico - 04/17/2008
After more than ten years working on researches, the technicians of the Centro de Tecnologia Canavieira - CTC (Sugar Cane Technology Center), in Piracicaba (SP), will make available important technological innovations in the areas of sugar and alcohol this year. Among them stands out the system of industrial production of sugar without sulphur in the process. This ore is used to clear the product, which is orginally dark-colored. It also stands out the process of dry washing sugar cane, which eliminates water from the first industrial stage of sugar and alcohol, and the biotechnology advances, with selection of sugar cane cultivars adequated to each region of the country. With an annual budget of R$ 40 million (US$ 22.9 million), almost twice the funds available in August of 2004, when the technological center worked under the command of Copersucar, the CTC is in the process of obtainning patents for its current innovations. It's worth remembering that CTC's funds in cash are very small, if compared with the appropriation of US$ 1 billion (annual) spent by the USA in researches in the area of second generation ethanol. According to CTC's executive-director Tadeu Andrade, the technological center, with its headquarters located in Piracicaba (SP), is going to install a pilot-plant to produce sugar without sulphur. With a sustainable appeal that can prevent possible non-tax barriers to alcohol and sugar, the sugar cane dry wash technology will be also avaiable for the plants this year. When it arrives in the industries in trucks, all sugar cane is washed before being processed. For each ton of sugar cane, the plant spends one thousand liters of water.'We developed, in partnership with ITA (Technological Aeronautics Institute) a system of dry ventilation to clean sugar cane (a kind of giant fan). In this process, all mud and cane straw are separated', affirms Andrade. So, soil goes back to the ground and straw is used in the burning for energy generation. Researches in cellulose ethanol are also progressing. In partnership with the Danish Novozymes, it will install a pilot plant to produce the fuel in 2009.