Sugarcane Biorefinery, Technology and Perspectives

Sugarcane Biorefinery, Technology and Perspectives provides the reader with a current view of the global scenario of sugarcane biorefinery, launching a new expectation on this important crop from a chemical, energy and sustainability point-of-view. The book explores the existing biorefinery platforms that can be used to convert sugarcane to new high value added products. It also addresses one of today's most controversial issues involving energy cane, in addition to the dilemma "sugar cane vs. food vs. the environment", adding even more value in a culture that is already a symbol of case study around the world.

Focusing on the chemical composition of sugarcane, and the production and processes that optimize it for either agricultural or energy use, the book is designed to provide practical insights for current application and inspire the further exploration of options for balancing food and fuel demands.

• Presents the productive chain of sugarcane and its implications on food production and the environment
• Includes discussions on the evolution of the sustainable development of the sugar-energy sector
• Contextualizes and premises for the technological road mapping of energy-cane
• Provides information on new technologies in the sugar-energy sector

• Language: English
• Publisher: Academic Press
• Release date: Nov 21, 2019
• ISBN: 9780128142370

Book preview

Brazil

Preface

Fernando Santos

The concept of sustainability, much sought in recent years, is linked to the partial and gradual replacement of exhaustible sources by renewable energy sources. This sustainability path fits the concept of biorefinery, which aims to convert biomass into biofuels as well as bioenergy and bioproducts of commercial interest, in order to find a solution that combines economic viability with environmentally friendly production.

In the context of the most cultivated agroenergy biomass in the world, sugarcane is one of the most ecological and sustainable, being fundamental for the economy. In addition, it is important for the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions, quality of life in urban centers, and global improvement of the environment. Though its origin is unknown, many believe that sugarcane was first cultivated in New Guinea, where it was considered a wild and ornamental plant.

Sugarcane consists of the stalk—formed by several culms and made up of fibers (cellulose, hemicelluloses, and lignin), sugars (sucrose, fructose, and glucose), and leaves—composed of green leaves and dried leaves/sheaths, also called straw. With regard to sugarcane mass composition, the three main components (straw, bagasse, and juice) are practically in the same proportions and together represent 43% of the plant mass content, and the remaining 57% are represented by water. In energy terms, the same proportionality is verified among the sugarcane constituents, giving about 7400 MJ of energy content.

Straw and bagasse are mostly used for a number of agronomic benefits, for example, weed control, moisture retention, animal feed, and improving physical, chemical, and biological properties of soil. However, due to the significant amount that is generated, its composition and, consequently, the chemical and energetic potential of the vegetable fiber, it is possible to use part of these materials in a more noble use, both chemically and energetically, without any damage to agronomic benefits through processes involving the different biorefinery platforms—chemical route, biochemical route, and thermochemical route.

The biorefinery concept is gaining more prominence with great investment potential and has been identified as one of the most promising routes for the creation of new industries. This vision of technological development will have great relevance and importance regarding the evolution of the world agricultural and industrial sectors, directly reflecting on the generation of jobs and income in different segments of society.

Thinking about this optimistic scenario, which involves the integral and sustainable use of sugarcane through the different biorefinery platforms, we decided to publish the book Sugarcane Biorefinery, Technology, and Perspectives. The book is divided into 13 chapters and is prepared by some of the leading authorities on each of the topics addressed. The work is an important contribution to the dissemination of knowledge and the consolidation of sugarcane biorefinery in the world. The future of biorefinery has begun!

Good reading!

Chapter 1

Sugarcane world scenario

Mario de Matos, Fernando Santos and Paulo Eichler

Abstract

Sugarcane, now known worldwide for its high productivity, participation in high technology processes, high-quality raw material, and, especially for the potential of sugar and ethanol production, has undergone several modifications throughout history. It is a semiperennial plant of the grass family, originating from hot to tropical temperate regions of Asia, especially India. Its main characteristic is the production of sugars (mainly sucrose, glucose, and fructose), concentrating on its culm. The aerial part of the plant consists of stalk, green leaves, and dry leaves. The upper part of the plant has a higher humidity and the lower part has a lower humidity, with dry (or dead) leaves. The sugarcane presents a C4 photosynthetic cycle, with leaves in the form of spears, sprouting in stalks, and abundant tillering in the initial phase of development. The plant has approximately 57% of water in its mass composition, the remainder being divided between straw, bagasse, and sugar.

Keywords

sugarcane history; saccharum; world scenario; socioeconomics; sugar

Contents

Outline

Introduction 1

Historical itinerary of sugarcane 3

History of the main products of sugarcane 7

World scenario of sugarcane and its main products 8

Approximate values for the 2016/17 harvest 11

Approximate values for the 2017/18 harvest 12

The sugar and ethanol sectors in Africa 12

The sugar, ethanol, and energy sectors in Brazil 14

Socioeconomic and environmental benefits of using ethanol from sugarcane 16

Perspectives 17

References 19

Introduction

Sugarcane, now known worldwide for its high productivity, participation in high technology processes, high-quality raw material, and, especially for the potential of sugar and ethanol production, has undergone several modifications throughout history. It is a semiperennial plant of the grass family, originating from hot to tropical temperate regions of Asia, especially India. Its main characteristic is the production of sugars (mainly sucrose, glucose, and fructose), concentrating on its culm. The aerial part of the plant consists of stalk, green leaves, and dry leaves. The upper part of the plant has a higher humidity and the lower part has a lower humidity, with dry (or dead) leaves (Fig. 1.1). The sugarcane presents a C4 photosynthetic cycle, with leaves in the form of spears, sprouting in stalks, and abundant tillering in the initial phase of development (Santos et al., 2013). The plant has approximately 57% of water in its mass composition, the remainder being divided between straw, bagasse, and sugar.

Figure 1.1 Sugarcane plant illustration. Alexander AG (1985) The energy cane alternative. Amsterdam: Elsevier Science Publishers B.V., 509 pp.

This culture has been shown, throughout history, as an important product, widely marketed, and of great interest during several periods of history. Since sugar cane was used for sugar production it was responsible for the creation of new commercial routes in the old Mediterranean until its establishment in the Americas, when it is used for ethanol production.

In this chapter, we show the history of sugarcane, from its probable origin in Southeast Asia to the present day where sugarcane is present on all continents; being one of the most important crops in the world, generating hundreds of thousands of direct and indirect jobs. Due to the importance of its main products (sugar, ethanol, and energy), sugarcane has become a crucial source of income and development for several tropical countries like Brazil. Thus it is important to show the development of these countries with the use of sugarcane, so that is possible to know how impacting it is for humanity.

Historical itinerary of sugarcane

For a few years, India and Papua New Guinea disputed the origin of this plant as a native of these countries. The fact that some of the spontaneous species of Saccharum spontaneum and Saccharum robostun still being found in Papua New Guinea ended up giving reason for choosing this country that is now officially considered their homeland. The domestication of this species would give Saccharum barberi widespread in India and Saccharum sinensis implanted in China after many years. Thus Indians would have been the first to extract the sugarcane juice to produce raw sugar around 500 BCE. At that time, Emperor Darius, upon arriving in India, observed that there were plants that produced honey without the need of bees (Santos et al., 2018).

The name Saccharum attributed to sugarcane has its origin in the word of Transkrit, Karkara of India that was later called Sakkar or Sukkar by the Arabs after having introduced sugarcane from India to the Middle East through Persia.

A few centuries later, after being brought from Persia to Europe by Alexander the Great, the Romans would call it much later Saccharum name with which it would be adopted and later attributed by Linnaeus in 1753 for its botanical classification that lasts until our days.

However, sugarcane has been widely cultivated, in addition to Egypt, in Spain (where there is still the oldest known sugarcane mill in the world) which uses stone grinders, and also introduced and cultivated in other parts of the Mediterranean, such as Venice, from which later to transit in the 15th and 6th centuries for the Madeira Islands and the Canary Islands. Notoriously, from the Canary Islands it was introduced in the New World to Hispaniola Island (Dominican Republic) in CE 1493 and to Brazil in CE 1532.

In the mid-14th century, there are records that the production of sugarcane in the Mediterranean region (Crete, Greece, North Africa, and Cyprus) was related to the use of slave labor. Like the other agricultural productive means, the economy of the region was based on the slave work as productive force. At this time, the regions around the Mediterranean Sea had large trades and were considered developed for the time, influencing European countries like Portugal and Italy. Later, these methods of production and management of sugarcane were transferred to Brazil in the colonial period (Schwartz, 1988).

After the takeover of Constantinople, there was a monopoly on the production and sale of sugar. To end the monopoly, the Portuguese crown decides, as an alternative, to stimulate the production of sugarcane in its colonies of the American continent. Favorable tropical climate, fertile soil, and abundance of water pointed to Brazil as a land of favorable, even ideal, conditions for the cultivation of Saccharum officinarum, which originally came from the South Pacific and India (Le Couter and Burreson, 2006). Brazil would then affirm at the beginning as the place of preference for excellence of this culture that quickly expanded and became the main export wealth of the, then, Portuguese Empire, constituting a monopoly that would only be competed with the Dutch in the 17th century after its introduction in the Caribbean. Fig. 1.2 illustrates the passage of sugar culture around the world, starting from its origins in New Guinea, through India, the Mediterranean until its arrival in Brazil, around CE 1500.

Figure 1.2 The path of sugarcane culture: from its beginning to its arrival in America.

In addition to the strong trade competition in the Mediterranean region, Portugal saw the need to effectively occupy the colonies of the Americas, which necessarily required the development of productive activities to justify the investments of the Portuguese crown. In this way, sugarcane production, as in many other countries, has been especially rooted in the history of Brazilian territory and in its economy since the 16th century. Sugarcane was a valuable Portuguese settlement that enabled the mercantilist colonizing project of Portugal. Unfortunately, in addition to the devastation of forests, the colonial sugar economy also relied on the production model adopted by the Europeans in the new world. This model was based on the tripod landowner, that is, the landscapes dominated by sugarcane plantations were based on large land usage, monoculture, and slave labor (Prado, 2006). In this way, however good, the trade involved in sugarcane and its products brought social impacts in Brazil that are still felt today.

In Brazil, sugar production was established between CE 1530 and 1540, with the formation of small mills, of the trapiche type, moved by oxen and horses or hydraulic force (Fig. 1.3). Initially, as there was not sufficient slave labor, indigenous workers were used, who were the native population. As the mills grew, there was a need to increase the labor force, with the transition to slave labor. In this way, thousands of Africans were taken to Brazil to work in the mills. The first merchants, members of Fernando de Noronha’s group, during trips and stops on Madeira Island, Azores, and São Tomé, negotiated the first sugarcane plant cultivated in Brazil. In order to implant the sugar culture in Brazil, the land was divided into lots and donated to nobles, according to the wishes of the Portuguese crown. In 1516 the Portuguese monarch D. Manuel I, the Venturoso, decreed that everyone from Portugal to Brazil should bring instruction and equipment for large-scale sugarcane production. To this end, large amounts of money were traded on loans from Portugal and Holland to the land donors who were to produce the cane (Novinsky et al., 2016).

Figure 1.3 Hydropowered mill described by Jean Baptiste on his voyage in India between 1693 and 1706. Labat, J.B., 1742. Nouveau voyage aux isles de l’Amerique. Paris.

Cane growing successively passed from the Spanish Island to Cuba in 1760 as soon as this island is occupied by England where it also knows a great expansion favored by the demand of the sugar of the Americas in Europe. With the revolution in Haiti in 1795, a few years later, and destruction of cane plantations in Spanish territories, the French installed the culture in Louisiana in the late 17th century, thus initiating the American sugar industry.

The growth of sugarcane culture in the New World and in other continents has also seen different advances in the area of breeding after the creation of the noble variety POJ 2878 in Indonesia, which for many years has been the genetic reference in the hybridization crosses of many breeders from different research centers and varietal selection from several countries. Also going through the creation of many varieties of the Coimbatore Research Institute in India in 1912. The introduction of new varieties from the Coimbatore Research Institute also contribute to the growth of the sugar industry worldwide namely by using fuzz from Coimbatore to selected the well known NCo varieties from Mount Edgecombe in South Africa.

The main contribution to the enormous success of the growth and expansion of this culture goes mainly to the genetic valorization and introduction of irrigation techniques, where information about the first Java productions in 1840 from 2000 kg of cane per hectare is increased to 10 tons in 1910 and 20 tons in 1940.

Also, in the early 20th century, with the increased production of internal combustion vehicles, fuel ethanol began to become extremely interesting. As a result, Brazil, which already had large sugarcane production, created incentives for the production of ethanol from the crop, which helped solidify sugarcane cultivation.

History of the main products of sugarcane

Both sugar and cane culture have a very similar history. Sugarcane extraction takes place approximately 8000 BCE in Southeast Asia. Approximately 100–500 BCE in India, a manufacturing process is discovered that drives the use and commercialization of sugar: the transformation of sugarcane juice into sugar crystals. Thus it is possible to commercialize the product over great distances, because it improves its conservation and reduces the volume of transport and also the way of transport. With the progress of commercialization, China is soon also interested in the practice of sugar production, where reports (between CE 600 and 700) describe Chinese visits to India to learn the processes of sugar production. By the 7th century, it was reported that one of the earliest documented plantations of sugarcane in China, brought by the help of Buddhist monks in special missions of Chinese emperors (Sen, 2003).

For some time in the Middle East, the use of cane sugar for medicinal purposes (around the 1st century) was also known, between Greeks and Romans. With increasing consumption of sugar by European countries via Mediterranean routes, their price and importance increased; leading countries such as Cyprus, Crete, Zanzibar, and Greece to also have sugarcane production to export sugar, around the 10th century. At the time of the Crusades, there were also reports from the Holy Land of caravans carrying what was called sweet salt.

In Brazil, sugar was the first product to be exported in large quantities. Its great demand begins in the colonial period in CE 1520, having great importance for the development of the country. During the decades of 1530–40, the production of sugar was characterized by small sugar mills (Fig. 1.3). At the beginning of the first mills, the main product was what we now call brown sugar, a less-refined sugar that was the main product of sugarcane at the time. Despite being the largest Brazilian economy in colonial times, this industry is not exhausted during this period, and its effects can be seen throughout the 17th, 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries, entering the tropical territory of the continents of America and Africa. In the mid-19th century, due to the increase of sugar beet in the international market, the sugarcane crop suffered a financial crisis. In addition to competition, sugarcane farming was extremely dependent on slave labor and, due to the extinction of African traffic and the emergence of emancipationist laws, at the end of the 19th century, the main colonial crops were in crisis. Table 1.1 shows the occupation of slaves at the end of the 19th century in Brazil. It is noted that more than 80% of the slaves had agriculture as occupation, mainly the plantations of sugarcane.

Table 1.1

Source: Adapted from Filho, W.F., 2006. Crossroads of Freedom (in Portuguese: Encruzilhadas da Liberdade). Unicamp Publishing, São Paulo, Brazil.

The fermentation of sugar for alcohol production dates back more than 9000 years, by the Chinese, who used the technique to make alcoholic beverages. The technique of fermentation was passed over the years, being used in several drinks in history as beer, wine, and sake. By the 9th century, an Arab chemist, Al-Kindi, described the distillation of wine. From there, the distillation is used in several other drinks, with reports from the 12th century until the 14th century. Only in the late 18th century, a German-Russian chemist, Johann Tobias, obtained pure ethanol from chemical synthesis. In the following years, with advances in the chemical area, it became possible to use alcohol on a larger scale, where in 1840 in the United States, ethanol was used in lanterns. Then, in the early 1990s, ethanol was used in fuel-injected engines, primarily in early Ford models such as the Ford Model T, which could use both gasoline and ethanol. Then Brazil would follow the same US model, using cars with ethanol combustion engines, where the fuel was produced from sugarcane. Alcohol development and incentive programs, such as the pro-alcohol program in Brazil, made possible the great growth in sugarcane cultivation, as well as an increase in ethanol production, making the country one of the largest producers of ethanol to date (Santos et al.,