Cashew apple seen a viable source to produce ethanol

TheHinduBusinessLine

Kochi, July 23 The UNIDO Centre for South-South Industrial Cooperation (UCSSIC), New Delhi, has identified cashew apple as an alternative to food crops that are currently used for ethanol production. It has now entrusted the institutions in the country to develop a ‘Clean and Viable Technology for Economically Sustainable Industrial Processes utilising Cashew Apple as a Renewable Feedstock for the Production of Ethanol Fuel’.

The Cashew Research Centre and Department of Agronomy of the Kerala Agricultural University (KAU) at Vellayani near Thiruvananthapuram has been asked to prepare the project and it is currently under finalisation, Dr M. Abdul Salam, an expert on cashew, Professor and Chairman Department of Agronomy, KAU College of Agriculture, told Business Line.

The objective of the project, Dr Salam, said, is to “develop a clean and viable sustainable industrial process for production of ethanol fuel from the cashew apple as the raw feedstock”.
The cashew apple is abundantly available in about 30 producing countries and it is being totally wasted. The countries targeted initially by the UNIDO are India, Brazil and Kenya.

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