{"id":3898,"date":"2023-05-12T16:49:30","date_gmt":"2023-05-12T16:49:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ernestohernandez.org\/?p=3898"},"modified":"2025-09-12T17:17:22","modified_gmt":"2025-09-12T17:17:22","slug":"new-challenger-for-sustainable-ethanol-production-in-industrial-biorefineries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.ernestohernandez.org\/?p=3898","title":{"rendered":"Prickly pear (nopales): A Sustainable Solution for Ethanol Production"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Nations urgently need to tackle climate change in harmony with a circular economy to accomplish Sustainable Development Goals. Using sustainable biomass for sustainable industrial ethanol production seems attractive. Recently, the outstanding features of the arid plants nopales, aka prickly pear cactus, became headlines. Nopales outcompete algae and other biomasses in many aspects. Nopales are resilient, and climate change sparked their advancing invasion across European countries and other places. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\"Poster<\/a>
Poster presented at 7th Green and Sustainable Chemistry Conference, Dresden, Germany.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

A sustainable biorefinery for ethanol production\u00a0from nopales could holistically support promising outlooks on energy transition, water positive activities and food security near cities. However, the\u00a0environmental impact\u00a0and\u00a0energy efficiency\u00a0of this novel biorefinery for\u00a0renewable energy\u00a0under realistic scenarios is unknown. Traditional chemical pretreatments are polluters that can improve through environmental assessment and bio\/chemical process design.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We conducted experiments and assessments of scenarios for cleaner\u00a0ethanol production\u00a0from nopales in a biorefinery.\u00a0\u00a0Four scenarios considered two fertilisers, two pretreatments and two operational modes. We conducted\u00a0life cycle assessment, energy balances and energy efficiency calculations. The most polluting scenario uses fossil fertilisers, acid hydrolysis and neutralization of nopal nutrients, and it resulted in approximately four times the global warming potential of the best scenario.\u00a0\u00a0Organic fertilisers\u00a0and the use and reuse of ionic liquids with acetone for washing was the most ecofriendly scenario. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We propose a cleaner design showing the lowest impacts in all categories, including Global Warming, Acidification and Eutrophication Potentials and more. Besides, the design used the lowest amount of energy per unit of energy as ethanol fuel. It also has the best energy efficiency since it converted three-fold the amount of spent energy, in the worst scenario, into net energy as ethanol fuel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sustainable biorefineries and sustainable biomasses are opportunities in the circular economy while pursuing climate risk mitigation, carbon neutrality and green energy for sustainable development.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To tackle climate change and achieve Sustainable Development Goals, integrating a circular economy with sustainable biomass use is vital. Recent studies highlight the efficiency of using nopales (prickly pear cactus) for ethanol production in biorefineries. Nopales, resilient to climatic changes, outperform other biomasses. Experiments on cleaner ethanol production from nopales have identified scenarios minimizing environmental impacts and maximizing energy efficiency. Sustainable biorefineries using nopales offer promising solutions for energy transition, water management, and food security, despite some unknowns about their full environmental and energy impacts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4824,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[94,98,96,99,97,12,111,45,95],"tags":[23,22,8,7,21,20,92,32,71,70,127,29,68],"class_list":["post-3898","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bioenergy","category-biorefineries","category-clean-energy","category-environmental-impacts","category-green-energy","category-news","category-output","category-research","category-sustainability","tag-biocatalysis","tag-biochemical-engineering","tag-bioenergy","tag-biofuels","tag-bioinspired-chemeng","tag-bioinspired-chemical-engineering","tag-biomass","tag-bioprocessing","tag-biorefineries","tag-biorefinery","tag-biotechnology","tag-research","tag-valorization"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.ernestohernandez.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/2022-05-20-15.22.04-1-scaled-e1727908249570.jpg?fit=1919%2C1919","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6rw5S-10S","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4807,"url":"http:\/\/www.ernestohernandez.org\/?p=4807","url_meta":{"origin":3898,"position":0},"title":"Sustainable advanced ethanol production from Opuntia prickly pear cactus nopales","author":"Ernesto Hernandez","date":"October 1, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"Cleaner industrial bioethanol production from sustainable biomass could support the circular economy to achieve Sustainable Development Goals while tackling climate change. 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