Use of Tower Reactors for Continuous Ethanol Production

The purpose of this work was to develop a continuous fermentation system operating with a tower reactor using some flocculent yeast strains isolated from an industrial process. The strain was an used in the trial of the proposed system, composed of two serial glass tower reactor. The effects of the following variables were studied on the yield and productivity of the system: total reducing sugar (TRS), concentration in feeding, recycle flow in the second reactor, residence time and diameter/height ratio of the reactors. It was observed that the TRS concentration in feeding and residence time is the variables that interfere most with the productivity of the system. Yield was not affected by any of the variables within the range of values studied. All trials were performed according to a factorial experimental design (making up a total of 19 trials) and the results were evaluated by response surface.