Pina E., Palacios-Bereche R., Chavez-Rodrigues M., Ensinas A., Modesto M., Nebra S., 2014, Thermal Integration of Different Plant Configurations of Sugar and Ethanol Production from Sugarcane, Chemical Engineering Transactions, 39, 1147-1152.
The sugarcane industry represents one of the most important economic activities in Brazil producing sugar and ethanol for the internal and external markets. Most of the sugarcane plants in Brazil have been projected to produce both sugar and ethanol, prioritizing one over the other according to market prices. There are also plants dedicated only to ethanol production. Nevertheless, this change in the production pattern affects parameters in their production such as water consumption, steam demands, bagasse surplus and electricity production. Thus, the aim of this study is to evaluate the production parameters for different configurations of sugarcane plant: (a) all sugarcane juice is destined to produce ethanol without sugar production and (b) distribution of 50 %/50 % of total recoverable sugars in sugar and ethanol production. Simulations in ASPEN PLUS® software were performed in order to evaluate the mass and energy balances and thermal integration using the Pinch Method was applied in order to minimize the utilities consumption.
