Análise e resolução de desvios no processo de fermentação para produção de etanol hidratado em uma usina sucroalcooleira "X" no noroeste paulista

Abstract

The indiscriminate use of non-renewable energy sources, like petroleum and coal has been dramatically reducing the fossil fuel sources and causing serious environmental damage, such as the worsening of the natural greenhouse effect, the well known global warming due to the excessive release of carbon dioxide (CO 2 ), among other greenhouse gases, like the methane, on the atmosphere. This fact has drawn attention to the importance of sustainable development, achieving na intense change in the global energy matrix, thus amplifying the use of renewable energies, such as Wind, solar, biomass, among others. In this scenario, ethanol production stands out in Brazil, concentrated in the South-central region of the country, and using sugarcane as main raw material. The country is the second largest producer in the world, accounting for 29.6% of the ethanol used in the world, second only to the United States, which provides 54.4% of the total. However, despite being behind the US, Brazil has a great advantage by producing ethanol from sugarcane, in relation to the USA, whose main raw material is corn, because sugarcane is one of the oldest and most consolidated crops in the country, dating since its colonization and, today, with all technologies developed over the years it is possible to produce about twice as much ethanol per planted area of sugarcane than corn. Therefore, the objective of this study is to evaluate the indicators of the fermentation process for the production of hydrated ethanol fuel and its most relevant deviations in crop 22'23 in a sugar-alcohol plant "X" in northwestern São Paulo, with its general characteristics and particularities, as well as the action plans taken for the resolution of each deviation and for the normalization of performance indexes, analyzing, especially, the concentration of yeast cream at the exit of the wine centrifuges and yeast flocculation, as well as the relationship between these parameters, the main causes of their variations and the corrective measures adopted.