Dear Friends:
I subscribed to the yeast list today and since there is no
information file about the list I would like to know what are the
main subjects being discussed and also to introduce myself.
I am a chemical engineer working with alcoholic fermentation and so
with yeast, for more than 20 years.
I work for a brazilian private Cooperative that owns a Research and
Development Center here at Piracicaba at the Sao Paulo state that is
at the Southern part of Brazil and where there are the bigger and
better ethanol plants. This Cooperative, called Copersucar produces 2
billion liters of ethanol per year in 36 plants or 25% of the nation
production.
I am responsible for the Alcohol Technology Section where we have
been studying process improvements in fermentation and distillation.
In 1984 we launch the first high scale plant designed to operate in a
continuous multistage mode with total cell recycle.
Today 40% of the total ethanol is produced in continuous plants.
We are now using specially selected yeasts that can stand high
alcoholic contents (up to 11 % vol) in a very fast and productive
process (fermentation time= 6-8 h, yield = 91% over stoichiometric)
and at temperatures from 34 to 37 C, with no yeast reinoculation
(most of the plants buy 200 to 2000 kg at the beggining of the sugar
cane crop season and utilize then till the end, 6-7 months later).
We made several studies on yeast "physiology", to increase the yield
reducing glycerol and yeast cell mass production and increasing
ethanol production at the same time while keeping high viability.
We developed a nice kinetics model that we are using for automatic
control simulating a sugar (software) sensor.
Please let me know your interest in the topics above or any other
related to industrial uses of yeast.
I thank you for your attention.
Regards
------------------------------------
Jaime Finguerut (Mr., chem.eng.)
Copersucar
Cx.Postal 162 Piracicaba
Sao Paulo BRAZIL 13400-970
fax +55 19 429 8109
jaime at azul.ctc.com.br
