The rise in productivity and search for excellence in the Brazilian ethanol production: a success story

• Autor(a) principal: Gimenez, Andres Rosello
• Data de Publicação: 2018
• Outros Autores: Altopiedi, Luiz Guilherme, Carballo, Nicolás Versolato, Silva, Leila Cristina Magalhães, Liria, Cleber Wanderlei
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Research, Society and Development
• Texto Completo: https://rsdjournal.org/index.php/rsd/article/view/270
• topic: caña de azúcar; Pro-alcohol; biocombustibles; la ciencia brasileña.; cana-de-açúcar; Proálcool; biocombustível; ciência brasileira.; Sugarcane; Biofuel; Brazilian Science.

Brazil is the leader country in ethanol production. Advances in technology of biofuel production have been driven by worldwide factors. One of the factors was the National Alcohol Program (Proálcool) creation by the federal government in 1973. Since then, Brazilian researchers have begun studies to optimize the production chain which led Brazil to the top in the international panorama. The main results were: i) a 73% increase in agricultural productivity, a 77% reduction in fermentation time and an increase of 44 times in the annual ethanol production; ii) self-sufficiency and selling the electric energy produced by the bagasse burning; iii) Low cost of ethanol production compared to North American production cost. As of 2010, even with intense scientific production, gains in productivity have become reduced. In order for Brazil to continue at the highest levels in the world ranking of ethanol producers, it will be necessary to overcome the following challenges:  i) To study the economic viability of second generation ethanol production; and ii) to build up more biorefineries that convert ethanol into higher value-added molecules.