Biofuels from Residues of the Tequila Industry of Mexico
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abstract
One of the most important industries in Mexico is the one associated to the tequila production; where several agave residues are produced (agave is the plant used to make tequila), these residues are lignocellulosic matter that can be used to produce bioethanol. The agave residues are obtained in the harvesting sites located in several states of Mexico and from the tequila factories that are mainly located in two places in Mexico. Therefore, this paper presents an optimization framework for designing a supply chain for the bioethanol production from residues of agave bagasse obtained in the tequila processing in Mexico; where central and distributed bioethanol processing plants are considered. The bioethanol production process in the central and distributed plants is modeled according to conversion factors for the different processing steps obtained from experimental data. Results show that the bioethanol production from agave bagasse is a feasible way for obtaining biofuels. For the current situation, the results show that is possible to satisfy around 10. % of the total demand of bioethanol of Mexico. Finally, no numerical complications were observed during the application of the proposed approach, which is general and can be applied to different biomass types and biofuels. 2014 Elsevier B.V.
