Economic and environmental assessment of syrup production. Colombian case

This work presents a techno-economic and environmental assessment of the glucose syrups production from sugarcane bagasse, plantain husk, cassava husk, mango peel, rice husk and corncobs. According to the economic analysis, the corncob had both, the lowest production cost (2.48 USD/kg syrup) and the highest yield (0.61 kg of sugars/kg of wet agroindustrial waste) due to its high content in cellulose and hemicellulose. This analysis also revealed that a heat integration strategy is necessary since the utilities consumption represent an important factor in the production cost. According to the results, the pretreatment section requires more energy in the syrup production in comparison with the requirements of other sections such as production and sugar concentration. The environmental assessment revealed that the solid wastes such as furfural and hydroxymethylfurfural affected the environmental development of the process for all the agroindustrial wastes, being the rice husk the residue with the lowest environmental impact.