CASSAVA
In Australia, most Ethanol is made from grains which are also edible by humans.
Unlike the competitors in Australia, the Company will use a process that entails
the ability to recycle much of the redundant plant & equipment from the Nursery
and Essential Oils industries and modify the same for the propagation and distillation
of the Cassava plant.
Cassava Plant Description
With Common names of Cassava, Manioc, Tapioca, a Scientific name
of Manihot esculenta and a Family name of, Euphorbiaceae, Cassava is a tall semi
woody perennial shrub or tree with big palmately compound leaves. It resembles a
castor bean plant (Ricinus communis).
The dark green leaves are a foot or more across and have 5-9 lobes. The petioles
(leaf stems) are very long, up to 24 in (61 cm) long and they are red as are the
stems. Plants can grow more than 20 ft (6.1 m) tall in frost-free regions, but where
they die back and re-grow in spring they rarely get more than 10 ft (3 m) tall.
The tuberous edible roots are 8-30 in (20-76 cm) long and 1-3 in (2.5-7.6 cm) in
diameter.
They grow in outward pointing clusters from the base of the stem just below the
soil surface. There are several named cultivars available. The primitive "bitter
cassavas" contain large amounts of cyanide and need a great deal of processing to
make their roots edible. The modern "sweet" cultivars require only peeling and cooking.
Cassava root is long and tapered, with a firm homogeneous flesh
encased in a detachable rind, about 1 mm thick, rough and brown on the outside,
just like a potato. Commercial varieties can be 5 to 10 cm in diameter at the top,
and 50 to 80 cm long. A woody cordon runs along the root's axis. The flesh can be
chalk-white or yellowish.
The cassava plant gives the highest yield of food energy per cultivated area per
day among crop plants, except possibly for sugarcane. Cassava roots are very rich
in starch, and contain significant amounts of calcium (50 mg/100g), phosphorus (40
mg/100g) and vitamin C (25 mg/100g). However, they are poor in protein and other
nutrients.
In contrast, cassava leaves are a good source of protein if supplemented with the
amino acid methionine [although they contain Cyanide].
Ethno-medical Uses
- The bitter variety of Manihot root is used to treat diarrhoea and malaria.
- The leaves are used to treat hypertension, headache, and pain.
- Cubans commonly use cassava to treat irritable bowel syndrome, the paste is eaten in excess during treatment.
MainStreet Ethanol Production and the Cassava Plant
Ethanol is generally produced by the fermentation
of sugar, cellulose, or converted starch and has a long history. In the Third World,
local production of Ethanol from maize, guinea corn, millet, other starchy substrates,
and cellulose is as old as the country itself. Apart from food and pharmaceutical
uses, Ethanol is finding itself alternative uses for Biofuel in most of the developed
world for the following reasons :
- It is not poisonous.
- It does not cause air pollution or any environmental hazard.
- It does not contribute to the greenhouse effect problem (CO2 addition to the
atmosphere, causing global warming).
- It has a higher octane rating than petrol as a fuel. That is, ethanol is an octane
booster and anti-knocking agent.
- It is an excellent raw material for synthetic chemicals.
- Ethanol provides jobs and economic development in rural areas.
- Ethanol reduces country’s dependence on petroleum and it is a source of non-oil
revenue for any producing country.
- Ethanol is capable of reducing the adverse foreign trade balance.
The MainStreet Cassava Ethanol Production Process Biofuel – the idea isn’t new…
“The use of vegetable oil as a fuel product may be insignificant today. However,
in time, such products will become just as important as petroleum and tar-coal products
are today.” - Rudolf Diesel, 1912
“The fuel of the future is going to come from fruit like that found out by the road,
or from apples, weeds, sawdust …There is fuel in every bit of vegetable matter that
can be fermented. There's enough alcohol in one year's yield of an acre of potatoes
to drive the machinery necessary to cultivate the fields for a hundred years. Will
farmers become the new oil barons”? - Henry Ford, 1925
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