Bagasse can become gas and then alcohol
O Estado de S. Paulo
The transformation of broth into ethanol uses only one third of the energetic potential of the sugarcane. The other two thirds are in the bagasse and in the straw.
The Institute of Technological Researches (IPT) is creating, with a group of companies, a project to develop a technique of gasification of biomass that would allow transforming this material that is not used today into several products, such as gasoline, diesel, methanol, ethanol and fertilizers.
"We entered into an agreement with four large chemical industries of Brazil, defining the model of promotion and industrial property", said João Fernandes Gomes de Oliveira, director president of the IPT. "We distributed the heads of agreement, which should be signed by the end of the month." The pilot plant of gasification will be installed in Piracicaba (SP), in partnership with the Centro de Tecnologia Canavieira (CTC) (Sugarcane Center of Technology).
The center of gasification of biomass of Piracicaba should be ready in the end of 2010. The idea is that the research lasts three years, with the purpose of getting to the end of this period with the control of a technique that is commercially feasible. The IPT is submitting the project to the Brazilian Development Bank (BNDES) and to the Foundation of Research Support of the State of São Paulo (Fapesp) to raise from R$ 50 million (US$ 26.3 million) to R$ 60 million (US$ 31.6 million) for the research.
"If the gasification were only to produce ethanol, it would not be worth, since the technology we have today is fairly efficient", assessed Alfred Szwarc, consultant of the Union of the Sugarcane Industry (Unica). "With the other products, it starts becoming interesting." The gasification is one of the technological alternatives to achieve the so-called second generation ethanol, created from cellulose. The center of gasification in Piracicaba is part of a new strategy of the institute to gather companies into great projects of research that would hardly be financed by only one company.