AGRICULTURE
Equipment Applications for Agriculture
Provide real-time insights into your process
Produced from plants or agricultural wastes, biofuel is a promising alternative energy source. The two most common biofuels are bioethanol and biodiesel fuel.
Bioethanol
Generated through the process of fermentation, bioethanol is typically produced from biomass such as corn or sugarcane. During this process, glucose levels will decrease while ethanol concentration increases steadily. With the tec5USA Compact Near Infrared Spectrometer (CNIRS), the changing glucose/ethanol concentration is monitored in the 1550 – 1950 nm range. Low detection limits for ethanol allow for increased product recovery.
Biodiesel
Biodiesel fuel production involves oil-based plant feedstock containing triglycerides, such as soybean and seed oil. The process involves the transesterification of triglycerides with methanol or ethanol to produce long chain fatty acid methyl esters (FAME). Traditional methods for analyzing the quality of the biodiesel production process utilize offline testing methods, which lead to higher production costs due to the process requiring time consuming analytical tests and potential reprocessing if the product is out of specification. With in-line NIR spectroscopy, methyl ester, monoglycerides, diglycerides, and triglycerides concentration levels can be measured in real-time. Understanding the levels of glyceride present during the reaction process allows for more accurate control of the transesterification process. Ultimately, this will reduce the time and cost to produce biodiesel fuel.
