Page 12 - Cannabis&Hemp Industrial-Hemp-Brochure

Stalk: Energy

The 2007 federal legislation that encouraged production of biodiesel in the United States has also increased
production of ethanol in an effort to offset dependence on fossil fuels and reduce carbon dioxide emissions. The
cellulosic material in hemp can be converted into sugars and fermented into ethanol to be used as a supplement in
gasoline, much as has been done with corn and soybean biomass.

High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC)

Careful attention must be paid to the fermentation process to guarantee its efficiency
and the purity of the final ethanol product. High performance liquid chromatography
(HPLC) is an ideal method for monitoring the conversion of sugars to alcohol during
fermentation. The Shimadzu Bioethanol Analyzer is a turnkey analyzer, well suited to
plug-and-play operation for this application.

mV
400
4
350 34 hr

300
250

200
8 HPLC chromatogram showing conversion of sugars
150
to ethanol during fermentation 34 hours after the
100 process began. Peaks are 1) DP4+ (oligosaccharides
6 with ≥4 degrees of polymerization), 2) DP3
50 1 (oligosaccharides with 3 degrees of polymerization),
2 3 3) Maltose, 4) Glucose, 5) Lactic acid, 6) Glycerol, 7)
5 7
0 Acetic acid, 8) Ethanol
0.0 2.5 5.0 7.5 10.0 min
Gas Chromatography (GC)

After fermentation is complete, the produced ethanol must be denatured to ensure that it is not taxed nor used
for human consumption. Following test methods such as ASTM D5501, which specifies GC-FID, allows for the
determination of the ethanol content in ethanol denatured with methanol or gasoline.

GC-FID chromatogram methanol and ethanol content in a fuel ethanol denatured with gasoline by
ASTM method D5501.

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