Cadeia de processamento de mandioca : tendências mundiais de tratamento dos efluentes e oportunidades de melhorias na linha de produção de uma casa de farinha do estado de Alagoas

Abstract

The cassava processing chain has the potential to be sustainable and can actively contribute in changes to a circular economy. This study aimed to evaluate world trends regarding the treatment of wastewater from cassava processing and also identify improvement opportunities on the production line of a furnace house (also known as flour house) in Alagoas, a State in northeastern Brazil. In order to better understand the trends of scientific researches, a bibliometric analysis was performed on anaerobic digestion and biogas production from cassava processing wasterwater using Scopus database. To verify the opportunities for Cleaner Production, it was made an assessment of water management, waste, effluents and energy and greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) in a furnace house located in the Agreste region of the State. The results showed that 632 papers on the subject were published over 41 years. Research interest has grown exponentially since 2001 and is mainly focused on the bioproducts recovery, such as methane, biogas, hydrogen, bio-oil, bioethanol, proprionic and butyric acid. The effluent anaerobic treatment has already reached full scale in countries like India, China and Thailand. The understanding of matter and energy flows along the production chain identified steps with some deficiency in the furnace house. In the improved scenario, with the application of Cleaner Production, there was a 25% decrease in electricity consumption and 67% in emissions related to burning biomass that feeds the ovens used to toast flour. At the end of the work, difficulties were found to adapt the proposed solutions by technical works to the reality of Agreste region. This shows that there are still limitations in the literature related to treatment technologies applicable to small-scale production, especially in rural areas.