Building A Cassava Factory

[Nepal4me]

Everybody says the farmers make the least amount of money, it's the middlemen that make the profit. So I'm wondering if building a Cassava/mansampalang factory would be a good idea. Obviously you'd have to build somewhere that is not close to another Cassava factory and close to a lot of Cassava plantations.

We could then be the farmers on our land and the middleman for the neighbouring lands.

Anybody have any thoughts on a Cassava factory?

[fruity]

Nepal,

I could be very wrong, however, such things as Cassava factories are very much likely to be goverment operated?

In Buriram they are currently constructing a plant for Palm oil, this is a goverment project. I cannot see them letting something as lucrative as Palm or Cassava get beyond their control.

Everybody says the farmers make the least amount of money, it's the middlemen that make the profit. So I'm wondering if building a Cassava/mansampalang factory would be a good idea. Obviously you'd have to build somewhere that is not close to another Cassava factory and close to a lot of Cassava plantations.

We could then be the farmers on our land and the middleman for the neighbouring lands.

Anybody have any thoughts on a Cassava factory?

[Nepal4me]

Nepal,

I could be very wrong, however, such things as Cassava factories are very much likely to be goverment operated?

In Buriram they are currently constructing a plant for Palm oil, this is a goverment project. I cannot see them letting something as lucrative as Palm or Cassava get beyond their control.

Hi Fruity. I'm not sure if some of the factories for Cassava are gov't run but for sure there are private factories.

The wonders of google show there are a number of different processes to convert Cassava to bio-ethanol. What I'd like to do is just the basics. The Cassava root is mulched up using a normal tractor and then it's spread on the ground/cement and sun dried. It can then be trucked to another factory that has the full equipment to process to bio ethanol.... or can be stored in a silo for up to a year.

The advantage of doing at least this first step is it greatly reduces the weight. The root is very heavy but after drying, you lose about a lot of the weight so it's much more practical for shipping. I'm not sure if this is all I have to do, or I do I need to do some further processing to get the weight down more

I'm trying to understand how much investment is required up front. i.e. could I just do the basic as I descrived above or do I need to buy much more equipment and do all the processing after the drying process also. I'll continue to search via google for more info.

Any help would be appreciated.

[Gary A]

I know VERY little about it but I do see some of the locals use a tractor mounted chopper. The roots are shoveled in and the chopped quite small pieces are spread on tarps to dry. What they do with the dried product, I have no idea but I suspect animal feed.

[Nepal4me]

I know VERY little about it but I do see some of the locals use a tractor mounted chopper. The roots are shoveled in and the chopped quite small pieces are spread on tarps to dry. What they do with the dried product, I have no idea but I suspect animal feed.

Hi Gary, I'm trying to determine that exact question right now. I've found various processes required for processing Cassava but am not sure if you do the chopping and drying process and can then use for bioethanol or if their is another step required to filter out the stones, sand etc. The following suggests there is a cleaning process but I'm not certain if that is done before or after the mulching and drying process. So if no cleaning process, it could be used for non-bio-ethanol purposes..........maybe.

3. The Technology

Various forms of cassava can be used industrially as the feedstock for bioethanol

production. The important ones are fresh roots and dried chips. Commercial starches can be used,

but not cost-effective. The decision of feedstock types is depending on their availability and price

as well as the plant design and processing equipment.

3.1 Raw Material preparation

In general, when cassava is used to produce bioethanol, it must be processed to sugar

syrup or starch hydrolysate, i.e. a product of starch hydrolysis by enzyme. Initially, starch is

hydrolyzed by liquefying enzymes (i.e. -amylase) and then by saccharifying enzymes (i.e.

glucoamylase) to glucose. Glucose is fermented to ethanol by yeast. To improve the efficiency of

enzyme hydrolysis, the material should be milled to small piece and starch is cooked to

gelatinization, i.e. a process that disrupt the structure of starch granules. The process of raw

material preparation is feedstock type-dependent.

(1) Chips

i) Production of cassava chip

Fresh roots are very perishable due to very high moisture content (60-70%).

After being harvested, roots are readily converted to dried chips using only simple chopping

machine as shown in Fig. 3. After chopping into small pieces, the chips are sun-dried on a cement

floor. Dried chips are easy to transport and can be stored for a year in the silo (Fig 4). Cares must

be taken when stored the dried chips as heat can be generated and accumulated inside the heap.

Therefore, the warehouse should have a good air circulation system to prevent overheating and

burning of chips. When used, the chips have to be transferred, using the rule of first-in and firstout,

to the process line. Dusts are produced, resulting in starch loss as well as severe air pollution.

In addition to starch and moisture content, the sand and soil contamination in dried chips is

another important quality of chips. Sand and soil removal must be performed in bioethanol

process.

[jamescollister]

Hello Gary

Don't know anything about Cassava, except it sounds complicated .

At the moment I am about half way through building a latex/rubber factory. It is not large but should be able to process around 1000 kg a day. So i will warn you that it is not just a matter of buying a bit of land and sticking up shed with a few machines. First you have to get planning permission, which even in a remote area can be a problem. The factory will have to have a good road close by and electricity. This will put the price of the land up and remember you can not use most farm land as it is only for farming. You will have to pay for a tranformer , they can cost alot. Mine was 7000 US.

Getting someone to biuld it can be hard. as most of the builders aroud here cann't read plans. I had to hire guy from BKK {ex local} to tell the builder what to do. Finding any tradesmen was hard . as most have gone to work in BKK. and you don't want jack the lad wiring up your new 50 kw transformer.

So all in all sounds a good idea, but look closely at what you are getting into and don't expect it to be cheap, it never is JIM

PS I would post some photos.but I cann't seem to attach them .

[Gary A]

I know VERY little about it but I do see some of the locals use a tractor mounted chopper. The roots are shoveled in and the chopped quite small pieces are spread on tarps to dry. What they do with the dried product, I have no idea but I suspect animal feed.

Hi Gary, I'm trying to determine that exact question right now. I've found various processes required for processing Cassava but am not sure if you do the chopping and drying process and can then use for bioethanol or if their is another step required to filter out the stones, sand etc. The following suggests there is a cleaning process but I'm not certain if that is done before or after the mulching and drying process. So if no cleaning process, it could be used for non-bio-ethanol purposes..........maybe.

3. The Technology

Various forms of cassava can be used industrially as the feedstock for bioethanol

production. The important ones are fresh roots and dried chips. Commercial starches can be used,

but not cost-effective. The decision of feedstock types is depending on their availability and price

as well as the plant design and processing equipment.

3.1 Raw Material preparation

In general, when cassava is used to produce bioethanol, it must be processed to sugar

syrup or starch hydrolysate, i.e. a product of starch hydrolysis by enzyme. Initially, starch is

hydrolyzed by liquefying enzymes (i.e. -amylase) and then by saccharifying enzymes (i.e.

glucoamylase) to glucose. Glucose is fermented to ethanol by yeast. To improve the efficiency of

enzyme hydrolysis, the material should be milled to small piece and starch is cooked to

gelatinization, i.e. a process that disrupt the structure of starch granules. The process of raw

material preparation is feedstock type-dependent.

(1) Chips

i) Production of cassava chip

Fresh roots are very perishable due to very high moisture content (60-70%).

After being harvested, roots are readily converted to dried chips using only simple chopping

machine as shown in Fig. 3. After chopping into small pieces, the chips are sun-dried on a cement

floor. Dried chips are easy to transport and can be stored for a year in the silo (Fig 4). Cares must

be taken when stored the dried chips as heat can be generated and accumulated inside the heap.

Therefore, the warehouse should have a good air circulation system to prevent overheating and

burning of chips. When used, the chips have to be transferred, using the rule of first-in and firstout,

to the process line. Dusts are produced, resulting in starch loss as well as severe air pollution.

In addition to starch and moisture content, the sand and soil contamination in dried chips is

another important quality of chips. Sand and soil removal must be performed in bioethanol

process.

I would guess that using the dried chips for ethanol production would be much more simple than for food products. No need to be super sanitary if you're not planning to eat it. As I said, the locals make very small quantities so I doubt it's going to the alcohol factory.

[PaddyThai]

Doing something like processing Casava, rubber or other products makes a lot of commercial sense to me. Adding value to the product and selling it on has laways seemed to be where the money is.

However, Would you not require a work permit or to register as a business. If you allowed your wife to own and register for everything you could be taking a risk working at the factory. I don't think Thais care about a Farang doing a bit of farming, where he mostly hires locals. But running a factory and competing with others could cause jealousy and other legal problems.

Don't mean to be negative. I would love to invest in a project along the lines of what has been mentioned.

[Nepal4me]

Doing something like processing Casava, rubber or other products makes a lot of commercial sense to me. Adding value to the product and selling it on has laways seemed to be where the money is.

However, Would you not require a work permit or to register as a business. If you allowed your wife to own and register for everything you could be taking a risk working at the factory. I don't think Thais care about a Farang doing a bit of farming, where he mostly hires locals. But running a factory and competing with others could cause jealousy and other legal problems.

Don't mean to be negative. I would love to invest in a project along the lines of what has been mentioned.

Hi Paddy, the point on family ownership is a good one but I'm really beyond that now. Everything will be in my wife's name, I may consider a foriegn ownership scenario where the company will be foreign and therefore I can own it. However, my wife is a good girl, she's very smart and a great wife and mother to our children so I'm not in a situation where I have to worry about losing all my money on the deal. There's no question that we are going to stay married forever (if that doesn't sound a bit over the top). The only reason I would go the company route would be that if she died somehow, I could then be shit out of luck. All the ownership would go to our children (minors) and thus to her family. They are honest people but I think many millions of baht might be tempting to almost anybody.

I have a line on getting more detailed info on how to set up a factory now so I'm going to pursue it. Will report back on my findings.

[jts-khorat]

Will report back on my findings.

Any updates on research and situation?