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ARS Home » Southeast Area » New Orleans, Louisiana » Southern Regional Research Center » Commodity Utilization Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #392289
Research Project: Improved Conversion of Sugar Crops into Food, Biofuels, Biochemicals, and Bioproducts

Location: Commodity Utilization Research

Title: Targeting a sustainable sugar crops processing industry – a review (Part I): Byproducts overview

Author
item Lima, Isabel
item Beacorn, Jean

Submitted to: Sugar Tech
Publication Type: Literature Review
Publication Acceptance Date: 5/7/2022
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary: Around the world, growing energy consumption from rapid urbanization and industrialization together with the overwhelming reliance on fossil fuels is affecting the integrity of both natural and human systems. Additionally, rising oil and gas prices and potential future shortages lead to concerns about the security of the energy supply needed to sustain our economic growth. This has resulted in an increased awareness for environmental sustainability in all industrial sectors. In the agricultural sector, sugar crops processing for the production of sugar, generates a wide variety of byproducts. Their reuse represents a prime opportunity for value capture and for the sugar processing industry to be the forefront of sustainability, while possibly realizing additional profits. Sugar crops are versatile in that they include a rich sugar fraction (sucrose, syrups) in addition to fiber (cellulose), fodder (green leaves and tops), fuel and chemicals (bagasse, molasses), and fertilizer (press mud). This is the first of two papers where production of several byproducts is detailed together with their specific physio-chemical properties and the ways in which they can be utilized beneficially and sustainably. In the second paper, state of the art value-added conversion technologies for these byproducts are described in detail.

Technical Abstract: Around the world, growing energy consumption from rapid urbanization and industrialization together with the overwhelming reliance on fossil fuels is affecting the integrity of both natural and human systems. Additionally, rising oil and gas prices and potential future shortages lead to concerns about the security of the energy supply needed to sustain our economic growth. This has resulted in an increased awareness for environmental sustainability in all industrial sectors. In the agricultural sector, sugar crops processing for the production of sugar, generates a wide variety of byproducts. Their reuse represents a prime opportunity for value capture and for the sugar processing industry to be the forefront of sustainability, while possibly realizing additional profits. Sugar crops are versatile in that they include a rich sugar fraction (sucrose, syrups) in addition to fiber (cellulose), fodder (green leaves and tops), fuel and chemicals (bagasse, molasses), and fertilizer (press mud). This is the first of two papers where production of several byproducts is detailed together with their specific physio-chemical properties and the ways in which they can be utilized beneficially and sustainably. In the second paper, state of the art value-added conversion technologies for these byproducts are described in detail.