Tereos Brasil invested BRL 15 million to implement a pilot mill for producing vinasse biogas (a sugarcane residue) at the Cruz Alta unit in the city of Olímpia (SP). Renato Zanetti, the superintendent of sustainability, says that the investment is part of the company’s plans to take advantage of 100% of sugarcane potential. Every year, Tereos’s seven sugar and ethanol mills receive around 15.6 million tons of sugarcane, which turn out to be 1.4 million tons of sugar, and 531 million liters of ethanol. The plant’s corporate manager Jonas Gutierrez explains that after passing through the biodigester to produce biogas, the byproduct resulting from the distillation of ethanol remains productive and becomes a kind of fertilizer. Each liter of ethanol generates 12 liters of vinasse.
Source: Globo Rural/ União Nacional da Bioenergia (*Translated by Ia Niani)