Butanol Production from Wastewater in Anaerobic Reactor

Abstract

This research has as main focus the production of butanol from wastewaters and is being proposed to contribute to the research area of the thematic project entitled "Bioenergy Production from Wastewaters and Environmental Fitting of Liquid and Solid Wastes Generated", FAPESP process 2009/15984-0. Despite the greater part of world production of butanol be intended for industrial use, in the production of rubber, enamels, lacquers and plasticizers, their properties similar to the petrol provide their use as fuel. Butanol may replace gasoline without needing to modify or adapt the engines.The production of butanol is mainly performed by chemical processes for being more efficient, however the concerns about global warming demand research by alternative sources of energy, renewable and cleaner.The research involving the production of butanol from wastewaters involves a biphasic fermentation process which produces solvent consisting of a mixture of acetone-butanol-ethanol.This project aims at the optimization of the production of butyrate in anaerobic reactor fed with organic substrate. In the second stage, the effluent from acidogenic reactor will be treated in another reactor to produce solvents from fatty acids, with focus on butanol. Finally, the acidogenic reactor acidogenic will be fed with cane stillage-of-sugar in order to evaluate the potential production potential of butanol from this waste.