Abstract:-

Ethanol is very widely used compound is beverages and many food applications.
Ethanol has good liquid fuel properties. In the era rapid industrialization, the demand of
fuel is increasing day by day. Petrol and diesel are two major liquid fuels used in
vehicles in India. The cost of fuel can be reduced if ethanol is mixed with liquid fuel.
Ethanol can be manufactured from various agricultural raw materials like potato waste,
molasses, banana waste, waste food grain, etc. The current review summarizes the
ethanol manufacturing by using various low cost raw materials.

Bio-Ethanol is a clean and renewable fuel has gained more attention: however greater
energy inputs make a slow progress in industry. Membrane technology has potential in
the bioethanol production process as a highly selective and energy saving separation
process. This review presented membrane technologies applied in three aspects: (1)
Microalgae harvesting, (2) Sugar concentration and detoxification, (3) Bio ethanol
recovery. The performance of different membrane processes was summarized and
compressed.

1. Introduction:-

Production of various chemicals by using low cost processes is important from the
economical considerations. This is more important for developing countries. Many
compounds like acetic acid, starch, ethanol, lactic acid, etc. can be manufactured by using
low cost feed stocks & waste material serves two porpoise. It reduces waste & also
economize the production of these chemicals. Ethanol is important chemical used in
wide range of application stating from food industry to petroleum industry.
 Due to increasing oil price environmental concerns, current European & Asian
initiatives are aiming to rise the share of biofuel used for transportation from approx.
Global biofuel demand is expected to 6% or 9,100 million liter per year (MLPY) higher
in 2022 than 2021. India is actively encouraging the setting up of both traditional and
second generation (2G) ethanol plants to meet the anticipated rise in demand in 2025
when it expects to launch 20% ethanol –blended gasoline across the country. The Indian
government launched 20% ethanol-blended gasoline at select outlets in 11 states in
February 2023, two months ahead of scheduled 1 April & expects to launch it across the
country by financial year 2025-26.

The government expects to see a 25% increase in the country’s total ethanol production
capacity by end of calendar year 2023 said Sangeet Singla, director, Ministry of
Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution. “India currently has the capacity to
produce nearly 10 billion liters. We should be able to increase it to 12.5 billion liters by
late 2023,” he added.

Sugarcane is used to produce nearly 70% of the current capacity, while grains like rice
and maize contribute the remaining 30%. As Per official government records, India’s
current ethanol production capacity stands at around 9.5 billion liters of which 6.2 billion
liters are produced using sugarcane feedstock while 3.3 billion liters come from grain
feedstock.

As per the roadmap prepared by government think tank NITI Aayog, the estimated
requirement of ethanol for blending with gasoline is 5.42 billion liters for ESY 2022-23
and 6.98 billion liters for ESY 2023-24.

Starch-based bioethanol production

The production of starch-based bioethanol varies with the feedstock. Typical starch feedstocks
are e.g. maize, wheat, cassava and potatoes. Further, two different concepts for the starch-
based bioethanol production are currently realized on industrial scale :(1) separate hydrolysis
and fermentation (SHF) and (2) simultaneous hydrolysis and fermentation (SFF). In
SHF,enzymes for the hydrolysis step and the yeast are added in two steps in contrast to SFF
in which both enzymes and yeast are added simultaneously. The key advantage of SHF is that
the two steps — hydrolysis and fermentation — can be optimized independently, while SFF
overcomes product inhibitions more effectively and thus leads to a higher yieldStarch-based
bioethanol production The production of starch-based bioethanol varies with the feedstock.
Typical starch feedstocks are e.g. maize, wheat, cassava and potatoes. Further, two different
concepts for the starch-based bioethanol production are currently realised on industrial scale:
(1) separate hydrolysis and fermentation (SHF) and (2) simultaneous hydrolysis and
fermentation (SFF). In SHF, enzymes for the hydrolysis step and the yeast are added in two
steps in contrast to SFF in which both enzymes and yeast are added simultaneously. The key
advantage of SHF is that the two steps — hydrolysis and fermentation — can be optimized
independently, while SFF overcomes product inhibitions more effectively and thus leads to

a higher yield.

Fig.1. Production concepts for bioethanol depending on feedstock

The initial steps in the starch-based bioethanol production differ depending on the
feedstock but the front-end of a SHF process would generally include a liquefaction and
hydrolysis step followed by fermentation. The first potential membrane application in this
concept is the purification of feedstock after hydrolysis and before fermentation. By use
of Microfiltration/Ultrafiltration (MF/UF) it is possible to remove
Impurities, such as enzymes and starch residues from the glucose before the fermentation
step. This includes the option to recycle enzymes back to the hydrolysis step. As regards
the fermentation step, different approaches to combine membranes directly with the
fermenter have been investigated. Processes such as MF, UF and hydrophobic
evaporation (PV) have been considered to be combined with the fermentation step [3].
The idea is to remove bioethanol continuously from the fermenter and thus to overcome
product inhibitions. The membrane unit can be either directly submerged in the fermenter
or running as a side-stream and typically a bleed stream will be removed from the
process. After fermentation, the pre-concentrated and pre-purified bioethanol stream is
then passed to distillation for further concentration. One of the limitations of ethanol
concentration by distillation is the azeotropic point of ethanol. To overcome this point
and to achieve purities of >99% either entrainer distillation or molecular sieves are used
as conventional technologies. Alternatively, hydrophilic PV or vapour permeation (VP)
which are neither limited by the azeotropic point nor require periodical regeneration can
be applied.A by-product from the distillation step is stillage, which is commonly
converted to DDGS (distiller dried grains with soluble) by using a decanter followed by
evaporation and drying. In this concept it is possible to integrate Reverse Osmosis (RO)
to polish the evaporator condensate, which might contain high levels of COD/BOD.
Alternatively, two concepts for stillage handling are under Fig. 1. Production concepts for
bioethanol depending on feedstock.