Sugarcane Waste is produced on a large scale in a nation like India whose Southern Belt is rich in Black Soil required for the crop to flourish. Being one of the world’s largest producers of sugar, the nation obviously has plenty of Sugarcane Waste to deal with. Bagasse, as sugarcane waste is known, is the pulp from which all the sweet has been extracted. It is rich in fiber content and it is this fiber that India is turning to provide it with much needed extra energy.

Sameerwadi, Karnataka in India is looking into the various ways money and energy can be made off the waste from sugarcane processing. Godavari Sugar Mills Ltd will use the fiber to make ethanol. The project hopes to be able to scale up from demonstration size to commercial size within a few years, processing about 5,000 tons of bagasse within four years, but they don’t state how much ethanol they plan to make with it.

The company is not just looking making ethanol out of the pulp but also other product which ensure that we utilize the maximum from natural available resources and do not waste much. They intend to produce items like paper, cardboard, textiles, water-soluble adhesives, cements, dyes – even L-lactic acid – and other items from the waste to help make the facility viable. This not conserves loads of energy but would stop felling of more trees for manufacture of paper. Hopefully the whole concept will hit the machines soon!

Via Ecogeek