Sweet Energy? Sugarcane Juice Generates Electricity! Technology Discovered by Researchers Uses Plant to Produce Sustainable Electricity

Written by Roberta Souza

Published on 20/06/2024 at 21:30

Foto: Reprodução G1

Seja o primeiro a reagir!

Sugarcane Juice Drives Sustainable Electricity Generation and May Become a Great Ally for Sustainability

Researchers from the Institute of Energy and Nuclear Research (Ipen), linked to USP, have discovered an innovative technique: the use of sugarcane juice to generate electricity in fuel cells. This method not only avoids the formation of harmful waste, such as vinasse, but can also be scaled up to industrial levels, according to the engineering website Engenharia Hoje.

Operation of Fuel Cells

Almir Oliveira Neto, coordinator of the research on sugarcane, explains that the fuel cell operates like a battery, using fuel to generate electricity. The cell has two electrodes: the anode (oxidation of the fuel) and the cathode (reduction of oxygen). A membrane between the electrodes acts as an electrolyte, conducting electricity.

In the developed device, the oxidation of sugarcane juice occurs at the anode and the reduction of oxygen at the cathode. The absence of hazardous waste, such as vinasse, makes the process environmentally friendly. The electricity generated can be directed towards the production of higher value-added products, such as gluconic, saccharic, lactic, levulinic, and furfural acids, with applications in the food, cosmetics, pharmaceutical, and polymer industries.

ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW

Learn More Details About Electricity Production from Sugarcane

Scalability of the Technology

The prototype showed that it is possible to scale up in the laboratory. To work with larger quantities of sugarcane juice and obtain more electricity, it will be necessary to increase the area of the electrodes and develop the technology for a larger scale. Public and private resources will be essential to realize the use of the device on an industrial scale.

The study involved researchers Bruno Villardi, Júlio Nadenha, Victória Maia, Priscila Zambiazi, and Rodrigo Souza, all from Ipen and the Nuclear Technology and Materials Program at USP. The supervision was by Almir Oliveira Neto, with co-guidance from Rodrigo Souza. The results were published in the Virtual Journal of Chemistry and SugarTech, demonstrating the electrocatalytic performance of different metal compositions for the generation of energy from sugarcane juice.

1 Comentário

Mais recente

Mais antigos Mais votado

Feedbacks

Visualizar todos comentários

Eustaquio

#18759

04/07/2024 14:38

Parabéns à equipe do Almir e Rodrigo

Responder

Sweet Energy? Sugarcane Juice Generates Electricity! Technology Discovered by Researchers Uses Plant to Produce Sustainable Electricity

Sugarcane Juice Drives Sustainable Electricity Generation and May Become a Great Ally for Sustainability

Operation of Fuel Cells

Learn More Details About Electricity Production from Sugarcane

Scalability of the Technology

The oldest tree in the world, alive since before the birth of Jesus Christ, is cut down in a scientific study and the case changes environmental preservation rules.

Seen from space, an image taken by an astronaut shows an unlikely oasis in the Saudi Arabian desert, protected by a terrain that slows the advance of sand, surrounded by green circles, remnants of an extinct lake and nearly 10,000 years of preserved history.

An entire island in the Pacific wants to surround itself with a colossal barrier against the ocean to try to escape increasingly violent waves and not be swallowed by the sea in the coming decades.

After ten days orbiting the Moon, science confirms that the astronauts of the Artemis II mission return with altered bodies.

With 7.4 trillion tons of artificial snow pumped in 10 years, an extreme operation could stabilize the West Antarctic ice sheet and prevent a sea level rise of more than 3 meters, but it would require snow cannons, ocean water, and energy on an almost industrial scale at the end of the world.

Peru built a tunnel at an altitude of 4,738 meters cutting through the Andes Mountains, and the road leading to it reaches 4,818 meters, making it the highest paved road in the entire world.

The SUS waiting list for surgeries has more people than the entire population of six countries.

Brazilians spend more hours in traffic each year than on vacation.

São Paulo and the Atacama are at the same latitude: what separates a metropolis of 22 million people from a desert is a forest 3,000 km away.

USP technology was used by NASA in Artemis II.

Brazil loses a soccer player per week to the Arab market, and no one knows where the money goes.

Sweet Energy? Sugarcane Juice Generates Electricity! Technology Discovered by Researchers Uses Plant to Produce Sustainable Electricity

Sugarcane Juice Drives Sustainable Electricity Generation and May Become a Great Ally for Sustainability

Operation of Fuel Cells

Learn More Details About Electricity Production from Sugarcane

Scalability of the Technology

The oldest tree in the world, alive since before the birth of Jesus Christ, is cut down in a scientific study and the case changes environmental preservation rules.

Seen from space, an image taken by an astronaut shows an unlikely oasis in the Saudi Arabian desert, protected by a terrain that slows the advance of sand, surrounded by green circles, remnants of an extinct lake and nearly 10,000 years of preserved history.

An entire island in the Pacific wants to surround itself with a colossal barrier against the ocean to try to escape increasingly violent waves and not be swallowed by the sea in the coming decades.

After ten days orbiting the Moon, science confirms that the astronauts of the Artemis II mission return with altered bodies.

With 7.4 trillion tons of artificial snow pumped in 10 years, an extreme operation could stabilize the West Antarctic ice sheet and prevent a sea level rise of more than 3 meters, but it would require snow cannons, ocean water, and energy on an almost industrial scale at the end of the world.

Peru built a tunnel at an altitude of 4,738 meters cutting through the Andes Mountains, and the road leading to it reaches 4,818 meters, making it the highest paved road in the entire world.

With 5.6 trillion tons of natural hydrogen beneath the Earth, 26 times the known oil and more energy than all the natural gas in the world, the new gold rush is already mobilizing Bill Gates, Amazon, and Petrobras.

U.S. researchers publish the first national map of natural hydrogen, placing 30 states on the radar and changing what was known about clean energy in the American underground.

Solar-powered ice factory in the Amazon that eliminated a 5-hour trip to Manaus, prevents the loss of up to two-thirds of the fish, and now ensures income for more than 30 riverside families.

Every time a river flows into the sea, an amount of energy equivalent to a 120-meter waterfall is silently wasted, but Japan has just inaugurated the world’s first power plant that captures this waste and transforms it into electricity 24 hours a day without sun, wind, or fuel.

Silicon Valley bets on a 100-hour battery that uses carbon and oxygen to store renewable energy for days and could turn a little-known chemical system into an alternative to critical metal batteries to tackle prolonged blackouts.

The SUS waiting list for surgeries has more people than the entire population of six countries.

Brazilians spend more hours in traffic each year than on vacation.

São Paulo and the Atacama are at the same latitude: what separates a metropolis of 22 million people from a desert is a forest 3,000 km away.

USP technology was used by NASA in Artemis II.

Brazil loses a soccer player per week to the Arab market, and no one knows where the money goes.