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DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION OF A BIO-ETHANOL PILOT PLANT IN NIGERIA

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 Misau Idris Muhammad, Bugaje Idris Muhammad, Mohammed Ibrahim Ali and Mohammed Jibril,
Jibril 2013.
ISSNDesign and
2088-6586
Construction of a Bio-Ethanol Pilot Plant in Nigeria.
Volume 3, Number 1: 11-16, January, 2014
© T 2014 Depar tment of Envir onmental Engineer ing
SepuluhNopember Institute of Technology, Surabaya
& Indonesian Society of Sanitary and Environmental Engineers, Jakarta
reviewed journal
International peer-reviewed Open Access https://www.trisanita.org/japes

This research paper is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License,
License which permits
unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION OF A BIO

BIO-ETHANOL
ETHANOL PILOT PLANT IN
NIGERIA

MISAU IDRIS MUHAMMAD1, BUGAJE IDRIS MUHAMMAD2, MOHAMMED IBRAHIM ALI3 and
MOHAMMED JIBRIL4*
1,4ChemicalEngineering Programme, Abubakar TTafawaafawa Balewa University, Bauchi.
Bauchi
2,3ChemicalEngineering Department, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria
Zaria-Nigeria
Nigeria.
4Faculty of Chemical Engineering, Univ
Universiti
ersiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310, Skudai, Johor, Malaysia.
*Corresponding
Corresponding Author: Phone: +60167657458, Email: jibrilmuhammad@gmail.com

Received: 30th April 2013; Revised: 19th May 2013; Accepted: 24th May 2013

Abstract: This study presents the design and construction of a bio bio-ethanol
ethanol pilot plant.
-1
The pilot plant was designed to produce 100 L.day of fuel grade bio--ethanol from
sugar cane. The design was conducted using Super Super-pro
pro Computer Aided Chemical
Engineering Designgn software. The pilot plant consisted of sugar cane crusher,
fermenter, strainer, distillation column, adsorption column, heat exchangers and steam
generator. The equipment were fabricated locally in Nigeria, installed and successfully
commissioned. The pilotilot plant has proven the availability of local technology for bio-
bio
ethanol production in Nigeria.

Keywords: Design, construction, bio-ethanol, pilot plant

INTRODUCTION

The need for energy to carry out our day to day activities both at our homes and in the
industries cannot be overlooked. The demand for energy is increasing with increasing growth in
technology and urbanization. Our main sources of energy (i.e. oil, natural gas and coal) are
threatened by fear of depletion if new reserves are not found [1-2]. Energy is the prime mover and
backbone of economic development of any developing nation. Declining oil reserve and rising
cost of petroleum products as well as environmental and sustainability concerns have left a
market gap for bio-fuels
fuels globally. O
Over
ver dependence on finite source of energy like petroleum
refined products-(as
(as main fuel for transportation and energy generation sectors) have negative
impact on energy security and sustainability [1].
Ethanol has been produced since ancient times by the ffermentation
ermentation of sugars (i.e.
conversion of simple sugars in the form of yeast (zymase) into ethanol and carbon dioxide. All
beverage alcohol and most industrial ethanol are still made by this process [3-4].
4].
The
he resultant product (bio
(bio-ethanol) can be used as fuel for automobiles alone (E100) in a
special engine or as an additive to gasoline (such as E10) for petrol engines
engines.. Ethanol has a flash

11
Journal of Applied Phytotechnology in Environmental Sanitation, 3 (1): 11-116.
 Misau Idris Muhammad, Bugaje Idris Muhammad, Mohammed Ibrahim Ali and Mohammed Jibril, 2013. Design and
Construction of a Bio-Ethanol Pilot Plant in Nigeria.

point of 12.8oC, ignition temperature of 365oC, vapor flammability limit of 3.3-19, specific gravity
of 0.78, vapor density of 1.6 and boiling point of 77.8oC [5]. Ethanol can be blended with gasoline
in varying quantities to reduce the consumption of petroleum fuels, as well as to reduce air
pollution. It is increasingly used as an oxygenate additive for standard gasoline, as a replacement
for toxic octane enhancers such as benzene, toluene, xylene and methyl t-butyl ether (MBTE)
which in turn are responsible for considerable ground water and soil contamination. Ethanol can
also be used to power fuel cells. Transport and electricity generation sectors in Nigeria are
heavily dependent on petroleum fuels and thus, finding sustainable alternatives for these sectors
is necessary for the economic development of the country. The transportation sector, consumes
fuels in two major ways, - as petrol (or gasoline) for most small capacity vehicles and as diesel for
most of the heavy-duty vehicles and plants. The petrol can be substituted with bio-ethanol partly
or wholly. The conventional petrol engines of the vehicles we have today would not require major
modification to use these alternative bio-fuels. Various agricultural waste products, such as corn
stalk and comb, millet stalk, jatropha seeds, neem seeds, rice straw; etc can also be processed to
produce bio-ethanol more sources with references [6-7]. The use of these agricultural wastes as
precursors for bio-ethanol production will also eliminate undue competition with the production of
agricultural food products. By-products of sugar industries, namely bagasse and molasses, can
also be converted into bio-ethanol [5,8].
This paper intends to develop a functional bio-ethanol production pilot plant in order to
alleviate overdependence on gasoline, environmental hazard associated with fossil fuels and
ameliorate bio-ethanol production technology in Nigeria.

MATERIALS AND METHODOLOGY

Pilot Plant Design

A basis of one hundred (100) litres per day of ethanol was chosen for the pilot plant design.
Among the many different raw materials available in the country, sugar cane was chosen as the
plant feed. This was because of its availability within the vicinity of the state (Kaduna State)
where the pilot plant was located.

Choice of Chemical Engineering Design Package

There are many design packages and these include Aspen tech, Hysys, Design II, Super
Pro designer, Chem. CAD, PDMS, and many more. Each of these packages has certain
limitations on the material it can handle. For the purpose of this work, the Super Pro designer was
selected to handle the work because it is more suitable for biochemical processes.

Table 1: Summarized bulk raw material requirements (kg/Batch)

Component Initial Input from Output(from Final product to
sugarcane fermenterto the fermenter
crusher to the strainer) product tank
fermenter)
Carbon Dioxide 0.0000 0.0000 1192.4610 0.0000
Ethyl Alcohol 0.0000 0.0000 1238.6320 124.1805
Sucrose 0.0000 2839.1928 0.0000 0.0000
Water 0.0000 8169.5364 2383.8760 5785.6604
Yeast 0.0000 0.0280 283.9473 0.0000
Total 0.0000 11008.7532 5098.9163 5909.8409

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Journal of Applied Phytotechnology in Environmental Sanitation, 3 (1): 11-16.
 Misau Idris Muhammad, Bugaje Idris Muhammad, Mohammed Ibrahim Ali and Mohammed Jibril, 2013. Design and
Construction of a Bio-Ethanol Pilot Plant in Nigeria.

Process Flow Diagram

A suitable process flow path that best minimizes cost was adopted based on the design
objective. The selected flow diagram adopted for this work is shown in Figure 1.
S-155

CO2

sugarcne juice

10%EtOH+H2O P-02 / P-2

T-01 / T
Pump-2
10% EtOH tank
10% + yeast
yeast Ethanol+H2O
10% EtOH
F-1 / F
Stoich. Fermentation S-1 / S
Strained yeast P-01 / P-1
Strainer
pump-1
Condensate

95% condenced 95% vapor

vent E-02 / E-2 10% pre-heat E-01 / E-1

Condencer Pre-heater

C-01 / C-101
Distillation Column Steam
T-02 / T-2
Bottom product
95% Ethanol Tank
Water
SG-01 / Boiler

releave Steam Generator

95% feed

Spent air

T-03 / T-3
Bottom Storage
99.9% EtOH
E-04 / E-4
EtOH vapor
EtOH vapour Fuel Grade Cooler
95% pumped
P-03 / P-3
Fuel grade
Pump-3 Hot air T-04 / T-4
E-03 / E-3 C-02 / C-2
Fuel Grade Storage
Super heater Adsorption Column

Fig. 1: Process Flow diagram of the Pilot Plant

Design Procedure & Constrains

There are two ways by which a process plant can be designed. First is by manual calculation
which takes time and may contain a lot of errors and the other way is by use of suitable computer
aided Chemical Engineering Design software’s which are faster and more accurate. The first
method was adopted for the crusher designs while the second method was adopted for the
remaining components of the plant.

Design Constrains
There were two kinds of constraints in this design. The first was the external constraints and
the other was the internal constraints [9]. The external constraints are not directly controlled by
the designer, and cannot normally be relaxed. These include product specifications, possibly set

13
Journal of Applied Phytotechnology in Environmental Sanitation, 3 (1): 11-16.
 Misau Idris Muhammad, Bugaje Idris Muhammad, Mohammed Ibrahim Ali and Mohammed Jibril, 2013. Design and
Construction of a Bio-Ethanol Pilot Plant in Nigeria.

by consumer requirements, major safety limits such as flammability limits and effluent
specifications set by Government agencies.
The internal constraints were determined by the nature of the process and the equipment
functions. These include:
• The process stoichiometry, fermenter conversion and yields
• Chemical and physical equilibria involved in liquid-liquid and gas/vapour-liquid separations
• Azeotropes and other fixed compositions
• Energy balance constraints
• Other limitations on equipment design.

Construction of Process units

Based on the design carried out, working drawings were produced using AUTO CAD and
Microsoft Visio. All designed units were constructed under strict supervision and compliance to
specifications. The following are the materials requirement for the design and construction of the
pilot plant:
1. 1ft (0.305m) diameter, 304 stainless steel pipes (0.305m, 0.0254m, & 0.0508m diameter).
2. Stainless steel fittings of different sizes
3. Pumps and compressors
4. Stainless steel or Plastic tanks
5. Rashid rings
6. Zeolite 3A molecular sieve
7. Control panels
.
In addition, all units constructed were tested for leakages and rectified appropriately. Furthermore,
the units constructed were installed. Pictorial representations are presented in Fig 2.

Fig. 2: Installed plant – Full view

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Having chosen a basis of one hundred litre of fuel grade bio-ethanol per day (100 l/day),
material and energy balances were conducted upon all units of the plant. A summary of the
material balances for the crusher is shown in Table 3 manually computed.

14
Journal of Applied Phytotechnology in Environmental Sanitation, 3 (1): 11-16.
 Misau Idris Muhammad, Bugaje Idris Muhammad, Mohammed Ibrahim Ali and Mohammed Jibril, 2013. Design and
Construction of a Bio-Ethanol Pilot Plant in Nigeria.

Table 2: Summary of material flow across the Crusher

Material Amount, ton/hr
Input
Sugar Cane 5.000
Output
Sucrose (sugar cane juice) 0.725
Water 3.500
Fibre 0.650
Ash and other impurities 0.125

The material balances across the remaining units were determined using Super Pro design soft
ware. Table 4 provides a summary of raw materials requirement for the target design. The
process is semi-continuous. For the fermenter it is a batch system. Each batch is to produce 100
litres per day of product. The sugar cane crushing lasts for three hours.
Having completely determined the material requirements for the pilot plant design, input to the
plant was set into the software; it gave the design specifications for every unit of the plant. The
data for the main units are presented in Tables 2-4.

Table 3: Equipment design data for Fermenter Data (V-101)

Operational data (input)
Power consumption for agitation 0.1 kW/m3
Pressure 1.013 bar
Heat transfer agent Cooling water
Cooling rate 11281 kg/h
Cooling agent inlet temperature 25 oC
Cooling agent exit temperature 30 oC
Equipment Data obtained
Height 5.761m
Diameter 1.920m
Design pressure 1.500 bar
Maximum allowable working volume 90%

Table 4: Equipment design data for Distillation column (C-101)

Operational data (input)
Duty Component separation
Distillate 95% ethanol & 5% water
Reflux ratio 4
Column pressure 1.013 bar
Vapour linear velocity 1.021 m/s
Number of theoretical stages 14.45
Stage efficiency 70%
Condenser
Temperature 90oC
Cooling agent Water
Inlet temperature 25oC
Outlet temperature 30oC
Cooling rate 71028.2kCal/h
Mass flow rate 14213.6kg/h

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Journal of Applied Phytotechnology in Environmental Sanitation, 3 (1): 11-16.
 Misau Idris Muhammad, Bugaje Idris Muhammad, Mohammed Ibrahim Ali and Mohammed Jibril, 2013. Design and
Construction of a Bio-Ethanol Pilot Plant in Nigeria.

Re-boiler
Temperature 100oC
Heating agent Steam
Inlet temperature 152oC
Outlet temperature 152oC
Heating rate 73283.3kCal/h
Mass flow rate 138.2kg/h
Equipment data obtained
Actual stages 21
Maximum diameter 2m
Stage height 0.109m
Column height 2.297m
Column diameter 0.275m
Design pressure 1.5bar

Having certified the functionality of the fabricated equipment, they were properly installed at site.
The installation was done with the assistance of professional plumbers. Figures 2, shows the full
view of the installed pilot plant. The plant was successfully commissioned.

CONCLUSION

A hundred liters per day bio-ethanol pilot plant was designed. A summary of the material
balance was presented in this paper. Super Pro design software was used in the design. Based
on the equipment data provided by the software after simulation, working drawings were
produced for fabrication. All fabrications were strictly supervised to ensure compliance with the
specification. All units were tested for leakage and rectified appropriately before installation at
site. The installed plant was test run to ensure leak proof piping and fittings and was later
commissioned. It was demonstrated clearly in this paper that Nigeria has capacity to produce bio-
ethanol from sugar cane using local technology.

Rerefences
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dung. Global Journal of Engg. Tech., 5(1): 51-56.
2. Murtala, A. M., B.A. Aliyu, and G. Babagana, 2012. Biomass resource as a source of sustainable
energy production in developing countries. Journal of Applied Phytotechnology in
Environmental Sanitation, 1(2): 103-112.
3. Ahmed I., J.W., Barrier and J. Broder, 1998. ‘Biomass Ethanol for Engineered Fuels’ In Proceedings of
Bio-Energy ‘98: Expanding Bio-Energy Partnerships; Madison, WI, Oct 1998; pp 882–890.
4. Misau .I.M., .I.M. Bugaje, J. Mohammed, I.A. Mohammed and B.H. Diyau’deen, 2012. Production of
Bio-Ethanol from Sugarcane: A Pilot Scale Study In Nigeria. Intl. Journal of Engg. Research
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Clarkson University, pp 152.
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7. Douglas, G. T. and R.E. Vernon, 2003. Factors associated with success of fuel ethanol Producers, In:
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8. Chhetri, A.B., M.S. Tango, S.M. Budge, K.C. Watts and M.R. Islam, 2008. Non-edible plant oils as new
sources for biodiesel production. Int. J. Mol. Sci., 9: 169-180.
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