Onsite Bioethanol Production from Forage Rice Using Mobile Reactor

Abstract

We created a mobile reactor for onsite bioethanol production, without a power plant, by whole paddy saccharification and fermentation process using forage rice from paddy as raw material. We observed a strong positive correlation (r=0.93) between the cumulative fermentation temperature and the ethanol production rate. On a laboratory scale, we could decrease energy by about 40 % and the duration of boiling by 1 hour using slurry that was distilled thrice and physically damaged paddy. We were able to produce 17.7 L of ethanol from 50 kg of paddy using this distilled slurry and physically damaged paddy. The energy profit ratio was 0.99 including the previous value for dehydration process. Carbon dioxide emission from bioethanol production in Sado city, Niigata, is estimated to be 20.9 kg-CO₂/GJ.