Ethanol is manufactured in industries by the fermentation of molasses, which is a by-product obtained during the manufacture of sugar from sugarcane. Molasses is a dark coloured syrupy liquid left after the crystallization of sugar from the concentrated sugarcane juice. Molasses contain about 30% of sucrose, which cannot be separated by crystallization.
It is converted into ethanol by the following steps:
(i) Dilution of molasses : Molasses is first diluted with water to bring down the concentration of sugar to about 8 to 10 percent.
(ii) Addition of Nitrogen source : Molasses usually contains enough nitrogenous matter to act as food for yeast during the fermentation process. If the nitrogen content of the molasses is poor, it may be fortified by the addition of ammonium sulphate or ammonium phosphate.
(iii) Addition of YeastrThe solution obtained in step (ii) is collected in large ‘fermentation tanks’ and yeast is added to it. The mixture is kept at about 303K for a few days. During this period, the enzymes invertase and zymase present in yeast, bring about the conversion of sucrose into ethanol.
The fermented liquid is technically called wash.
(iv) Distillation of ‘Wash’: The fermented liquid (i.e., wash), containing 15 to 18 percent alcohol, is now subjected to fractional distillation. The main fraction drawn is an aqueous solution of ethanol which contains 95.5% of ethanol and 4.5% of water. This is called rectified spirit. This mixture is then refluxed over quicklime for about 5 to 6 hours and then allowed to stand for 12 hours. On distillation of this mixture, pure alcohol (100%) is obtained. This is called absolute alcohol.
