Unlocking Indonesia's sweet sorghum potential: A techno-economic analysis of small-scale integrated sorghum-based fuel grade bioethanol industry

Abstract

To expand the utilization of sweet sorghum as bioethanol feedstock, an initial study of the feasibility completed with techno-economic analysis of an integrated small-scale sweet sorghum-based bioethanol industry (capacity of 4 kL/d) located in East Java, Indonesia is exemplified in this paper. Bioethanol is produced from pressed sorghum juice, while other parts of the sorghum plant, i.e. grains, leaves, and residual biomass, are used to produce other valuable products such as sorghum flour, rice, bran, and biopellet. The feasibility of producing bioethanol from sweet sorghum as raw material can be achieved if all by-products and parts of sorghum that have not been utilized are also converted to valuable products. The results of techno-economic calculations show that the use of sweet sorghum for bioethanol and by-products is feasible to develop fuel grade bioethanol industry with an NPV of IDR 47.5 billion, IRR 28.0 %, and a payback period of 4.10 years.