THE CONTROL SYSTEM OF BIOETHANOL PRODUCTION AT HOUSHOLD LEVEL

Nowadays, the use of renewable energy is not maximized and still depend on fossil
energy, somehow the source of fuel from fossil is keep decreasing. One alternative way
is to utilize the renewable energy source like bioethanol. Ethanol could be used as an
alternate substitute for gasoline. Ethanol was made from any kind of ingredients like
dregs of cassava and sugarcane juice. The making process were started from
fermentation to purification process. On the purification process, the temperature must
be maintained constant at a certain value. To do the purification process is needed a
system that could heating on constant temperature, for that, it required a device that
could maintain the temperature and sensor as the temperature monitoring device. The
step of the control system are started from fermentation process, that is when the
alcohol content in molasses is high. When heating process (purifying ethanol), the
control system could maintain the temperature of evaporation tube in between 72 o C to
82o C. Then, the product from the heating process on evaporation tube will flow through
distillation tube that filled with water to cooling down the pure ethanol. From that
process, using the control system could produce ethanol content by 60% to 80% of the
pure ethanol, which this could be proof that purification using a control system is better
than manual purification that only produce ethanol content just under 40%.
Keywords : Fuel, Ethanol, Control System, Temperature.