Ethanol Production from Banana Fruit and its Lignocellulosic Residues: Exergy and Renewability Analysis

Abstract

Tropical countries such as Brazil and Colombia have the possibility of using their lands for growing vegetable products to produce biofuels such as biodiesel and ethanol. The objective of this work is to apply exergy analysis to evaluate the renewability of anhydrous ethanol production from surplus banana fruit production and its residual biomass. The study takes into account all production stages: growing, feedstock transport, hydrolysis, fermentation, distillation, and dehydration. It also considers the cogeneration plant and residues treatment. Four production routes were analyzed according to the biomass used as feedstock: banana pulp, banana fruit, hanging cluster or banana skin. Based on the exergy concept, performance indicators are proposed and calculated. In order to quantify the renewability of the ethanol production processes, a new indicator called “Renewability Performance Indicator” is defined and applied to the four ethanol production routes studied. The results show that when amilaceous material is used, better results than lignocellulosic material are obtained and four production processes studied must be classified as non-renewable. This paper is an updated version of a paper published in the ECOS'08 proceedings.