Part III : The Proposed Technology
-
What is it?
Day by day population of Earth grows and demands for varies products growth with it, and as a consequence of our daily life, we do produce a lot of waste, which can be reused to produce eco-friendly product which will not harm environment. One of our most wastes is done by supermarkets, for out project we target on Tesco, which wastes more than 300 kg/day of food, fruit and vegetables. All of these wastes can be reused to produce glucose, and technology we suggest is Enzymatic Hydrolysis, which emphasis on the hydrolysis of lignocelluloses feedstock to sugars and the subsequent fermentation of these sugars to fuel ethanol. However to make our reactor more practicable for the areas where supermarkets are allocated we will use only first step of this technology. We will produce from waste, glucose which is much easier to store in tanks and to transport as it will need less space than unprocessed waste. Also it is profitable as it will be transferred to the bigger plants for further developments for example to produce ethanol which can be converted into fuel, and more important it will be eco-friendly product at the end. This process is when Enzymatic Hydrolysis facilitate the cleavage of bonds in molecules with the addition of water.
-
Why do you choose this technology? Why not others?
As we went through many literatures about technologies to produce glucose, we have seen many disadvantages and advantages, one of them is that steps needed to produce glucose, some technologies such as: Anaerobic Digestion to get ethanol- this technology is good if installed on plant, because it need more reactors to achieve wanted product, so it does not fit our project’s requirement. Producing bio-plastic using Anaerobic Digestion – using this technology, humanity can avoid producing plastic wastes which doesn’t degraded for several decades, however this technology needs more improvements and needs specified waste only to produce bio-plastics. As we need more energy, a lot of governments are much more interested in this, than producing something which will again pollute our environment but with less impact, such as bio-plastic, even it is eco-friendly still it will require some time to turn into earth. Another technology we went through before choosing ours was producing energy using plasma gasification – Basically, this technology uses multistage to get desired product, which is not applicable in our case, as it will require more people to work on it and will need more natural sources such as gas to went through second and third step of producing desired product. So if we go through enzyme hydrolysis it needs only one reactor, which is more desirable for installation nearby supermarkets. Furthermore we have been targeting to send glucose which was made in supermarkets to be sent to bigger plants to get bio-fuel. Enzymatic Hydrolysis of glucose (cellulose) offers the potential for higher yields, higher selectivity, lower energy costs and milder operations which lacks in other technologies; also it provides milder operating conditions than chemical processes used in other reviewed technologies, which eventually was judged to be too high risky for industries to pursue at that time. However, emerging new biotechnologies offered to make all technologies safer, but it will influence the cost of that technologies, which is again not applicable, as it plays a big role in business, whereas Enzyme Hydrolyses are affordable, and uses simple technology which does not require purchasing additional expensive tools.
-
Is it a sustainable technology? (balanced between economy, social and environment).
As we are moving toward to make our environment more eco-friendly, we have chosen the most sustainable technology to produce glucose. Enzymatic Hydrolysis uses for its process wasted food and produces glucose from it, and it helps to reduce waste left by us, HUMANS. Many industries are starving for glucose, as from it many products can be made. One of the most important and future promising product from it, is ethanol and currently most ethanol intended for industrial use and all of them are produced from natural resources, which is ethylene, petroleum product and it is not sustainable. Use of cellulose will provide a renewable feedstock for industrial ethanol. Also in the process of making glucose we can recycle enzyme, as enzyme costs $1.47/gal, also reactor which is continuously loaded with waste is working in 45C and pH5.0 and with a total residence time of 48 hours, which is more sustainable than other technologies. Based on the learned data on our literature review, we have seen that 80% of the cellulose can be converted to the glucose, which is one more prove of the sustainability of this technology.
-
Is there any catalyst involved? What type of catalyst? How much is required?