Making Biofuel From Sweet Sorghum

Sweet sorghum plant (Sorghum bicolor) is the fifth largest grain crop after rice, corn, wheat and barley. Unlike corn, sweet sorghum is not in high demand in the global food market, making it an ideal crop for biofuel without straining the world’s food supply or harming the environment.

” We consider sweet sorghum an ideal ‘smart crop’ because it produce food as well as fuel,” said William Dar, director general of ICRISAT, a non- profit International Crops Research Institute for the Semi – Arid Tropics.

To obtain the fuel bioethanol, the stalks of sweet sorghum are crushed to yield sweet juice that is fermented and distilled Sweet sorghum has high positive energy balance, roughly equivalent to sugarcane and about four times greater than the energy produced by corn , said Mark Winslow , ICRISAT agronomist in an interview with AFP.