Author(s)

Grazielle Machado¹, Fernando Santos², Douglas Faria¹, Taiane Nunes de Queiroz², Flávia Zinani³, José Humberto de Queiroz⁴, Fernando Gomes⁵

¹Instituto do Petróleo e dos Recursos Naturais, Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Brazil.
²Centro de Estudos em Biorrefinaria, Universidade Estadual do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Brazil.
³Escola Politécnica, Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos, São Leopoldo, Brazil.
⁴Departamento de Bioquímica e Biologia Molecular, Universidade Federal de Viçosa, Viçosa, Brazil.
⁵Instituto de Florestas, Universidade Federal Rural do Rio de Janeiro, Seropédica, Brazil.

Brazil is the world largest producer of sugarcane (Saccharum officinarum) leading to a great generation of residues such as bagasse and straw, which represent two thirds of sugarcane energetic potential. Regarding these residues energetic potential, it is interesting to study their application in biorefinery processes. Thus, this work aimed at performing a chemical characterization of sugarcane straw and bagasse from RB867515 cultivar grown in Rio Grande do Sul-Brazil aiming at their use as feedstock in biorefinery processes. The obtained results were compared to data from other states and it was possible to conclude that edaphoclimatic conditions of Rio Grande do Sul have little influence in sugarcane residues chemical composition. Sugarcane bagasse presents larger potential for energetic use because of its volatiles content (74.82%) slightly higher than straw (68.90%), besides its high lignin content (21.85%) and higher calorific value (18.70 MJ/kg). Both sugarcane residues produced in Rio Grande do Sul have potential use as substrate in the obtainment of high value-added products from their cellulosic fractions (41.30% and 37.25%, respectively). The evaluation of energetic and chemical potential of sugarcane bagasse and straw produced in Rio Grande do Sul leads to the conclusion that these materials have high potential for use as feedstock in biorefineries.

Saccharum officinarum, Straw, Bagasse, Biomass

Machado, G. , Santos, F. , Faria, D. , Nunes de Queiroz, T. , Zinani, F. , Humberto de Queiroz, J. and Gomes, F. (2018) Characterization and Potential Evaluation of Residues from the Sugarcane Industry of Rio Grande do Sul in Biorefinery Processes. Natural Resources, 9, 175-187. doi: 10.4236/nr.2018.95011.