Comparison and Mathematical Description of Ethanol Fermentation by Unconventional Substrates; Sweet Sorghum Juice, Hydrolysed from Sorghum Bagasse and Cane Molasses

Vázquez Gómez, M. A.¹, González-Reynoso, O.¹, Aguilar Uscanga, M. G.², Solís Pacheco, J. R.¹, Moran Aguilar, M. G.², Balcázar López E.¹ & Aguilar Uscanga, B. R.^1*

¹University Center of Exact Sciences and Engineering, University of Guadalajara, Guadalajara, Jalisco
²Technological Institute of Veracruz, National Technology, Veracruz

Dr. Aguilar Uscanga, B. R., University Center of Exact Sciences and Engineering, University of Guadalajara, Guadalajara, Jalisco.

Keywords: Bioethanol; Kinetic Models; Kinetic Parameters; Raw Materials; Sweet Sorghum

Abstract

Currently the production of biofuels has taken great strength due to the increase in fossil fuel prices as well as a reduction in the world reserves, for this reason the demand for renewable fuels has risen, as is the case of bioethanol, which is of great importance. However, in most countries, its production is restricted by the use of raw materials that are used in food, as in the case of the US and Brazil, who use corn and sugar cane for their production, however, in countries such as Mexico this is not possible due to the high demand of these raw materials as food, for this reason the use of unconventional raw materials which provide the same amounts of fermentable sugars as sugarcane, as well as the use of high performance yeasts are important cases of study for the production of them. In this research is carried out the analysis of three fermentation media using unconventional raw materials such as sweet sorghum juice, sorghum bagasse hydrolysate and sugarcane molasses to study the kinetics of the yeast S. cerevisiae using the models of Levenspiel and Aiba. Tools as Successive Quadratic Programming (SQP) and Active set re used to determinate the kinetic parameters. The approximations to Levenspiel’s models presented a correlation coefficient of 0.57 to 0.974 with the use of SQP algorithms, while other algorithms such as Active-set showed values of 0.631 to 0.881 in sweet sorghum juice.

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