The Experiments On Fuel Ethanol Prepared From Sweet Sorghum Stalk By The Solid-State Continuous Distillation

Energy security and environmental issues is a serious problem that every country is facing now. Using fuel ethanol instead of traditional energy is an energy saving and environmental protection way to solve this problem. From2006, our country focuses on sweet sorghum, cassava, cellulose and other non-grain raw materials but no longer increases cereal to produce fuel ethanol. Sweet sorghum has a strong adaptability to grow in the mountains, slopes and saline-alkali plants, of which stems contain18%-24%of sugar, so it is an excellent biomass energy source to make fuel ethanol.Solid state distillation is usually used to concentrate and separate ethanol from solid leavening. Technics existing are all intermittent operations, which have low capacity, automation, and processing efficiency but high labor intensity and small yield. The paper presents a differential pressure type solid state continuous distillation technics to carry out continuous distillation. This technics has an efficient production and yield, at the same time availably ensuring the stability of the final distillation production concentration.Solid state distillation experiment was carried out with the device including a sieve tray and heating kettle. The research contained the effects of feed height, power, material distribution and so on to ethanol distillation.The experiment used differential pressure type solid state continuous distillation technics to make ethanol from sweet sorghum by the solid state continuous distillation. It mainly included the distillation state with bed height of700mm,800mm,900mm, and1000mmm, when the steam flow was27±1kg/h and the steam temperature was114-116℃.