Produção de Etanol Neutro a partir do soro de queijo coalho por destilação convencional.

Abstract

Due to economic and environmental issues, the prospects for increased consumption of ethanol leads to search for new raw materials , especially the whey , which is a residue of high organic load and hard biodegradability , from craft factories cheese. As cane sugar is a seasonal crop, a recommendable alternative is to confer on plants producing ethanol polyvalent character capable of operating with varieties of raw materials potentially available in the region, since one of the concerns of the world today is the supply energy in the coming decades. Given the above, this study aimed to the production of neutral ethanol using the whey from cheesemaking founded the city of Pombal / PB "curd". The first step of this work was the characterization of the raw material and the study of alcoholic fermentation using Saccharomyces cerevisiae through a 22 factorial experimental design with three replications at the center point to verify the influences of input variables (initial sucrose concentration and concentration initial inoculum) on the response productivity. In the second stage fermentation and distillation of ethanol neutral characterization was performed. According to the results, the experiment 4 showed the highest ethanol production, with an alcohol content of 9.8 °GL. The effects of concentration of yeast, sucrose and the interaction between these is statistically significant at the 95% level of confidence, whereas the concentration of yeast was the most influential variable. The neutral ethanol obtained was analyzed for pH, total acidity, density, electrical conductivity and alcohol content , and attended most of the technical specifications of the current legislation, except for pH. The results showed that the use of whey is strikingly promising to produce neutral ethanol.