Recycled of commercial enzymes in the production of ethanol of II generation

The present work proposes a procedure to evaluate the economic impact of recycling cellulolytic enzymes in the process of ethanol production from sugarcane bagasse. The proposed procedure stems from the experimental results reported about the yield changes obtained at laboratory level when the cellulose from Aspergillus niger, Sigma is used when it is recycled in one or two times. From the technological demands of enzymatic quality, some necessary mixtures are established for the technological requirements and with that the levels of addition of original enzyme are evaluated for different levels of recycling of enzymes. The procedure then includes possible scenarios for recirculating the enzymes one or several times and it establishes the economic impacts regarding reduction of raw materials. Since the process of recycling enzymes is planned for an industrial installation, economic estimates of the investment are made for a given capacity with and without recycling of enzymes. For this, starting from the material and energy balances, the investment and production costs are estimated, as well as the investments required to be able to recycle the enzymes in the enzymatic hydrolysis stage. Finally, economic technical analysis are carried out to evaluate the effectiveness of the enzyme recycling by measuring the recovery of investments required for this activity in industrial conditions. The economic benefits of recycling enzymes increase as installed production capacity increases.