The mimic of fractional distillation technology for development of homegrown pot distillery for ethanol distillation

Abstract

Nowadays, ethanol is an attractive renewable energy that can be produced from multi-purpose materials such as rice, sweet sorghum, sugar cane or even substrates from food industrial waste. Ethanol is not only produced in large scale by industry but it is also produced in small scale by SME or small agricultural community. This article, the simple homegrown pot distillery was developed to increase the distilled ethanol concentration by mimic fractional distillation. The distillation column in 20 cm of height and 6 cm of diameter was designed and applied for single homegrown pot in 1.8 litter of total volume. Column was consisted of 7 trays which each tray had 40 pores in 3mm of diameter, and condensate tubes. The experiment tests were done by using 12 vol.% of absolute ethanol and fermented sugar cane medium from yeast Saccaromyces cerevisiae fermentation at 8 vol.% of ethanol concentration. The effect of distillation temperature control by using 1.5 litter of 9 vol.% absolute ethanol was determined at 90°C at inside the pot, 80°C at top of distillation column and uncontrolled temperature. The results showed that the average of distilled ethanol at 34 vol.% was detected. The distillation was done for 272 min and yield of distilled ethanol was 13.33%. The controlled at 80°C, the average distilled ethanol concentration was 38.2 vol.%, for 269 min. The yield of distilled was 16%. Meanwhile, the uncontrolled distillation had average concentration at 36.35 vol.% of ethanol, 17.33% of yield, for 119 min. However, the efficiency of fermented medium distillation was a smaller higher than distillation of diluted ethanol. They were 39.5 vol. % of distilled ethanol, 17.33% of yield, for 194 min. Moreover, the efficiency of absolute ethanol distillation was compared with native homegrown pot at same concentration of 12 vol.% ethanol. The modified distiller pot had higher efficiency of distillation than native pot. These were distilled ethanol concentration at 44.2 vol.%, 16.67 % of distilled yield, for 159 min whereas native distillation showed 37 vol.% of distilled ethanol, 15.33 % of distilled yield and over 240 min.