Analele Universităţii din Craiova, seria Agricultură – Montanologie – Cadastru (Annals of the University of Craiova - Agriculture, Montanology, Cadastre Series) Vol. XLVIII 2019 331 RESEARCHES REGARDING THE OBTAINING OF JUICE FROM SUGAR SORGHUM STALK VLĂDUŢ V. 1) , GRIGORE I. 1) , VLĂDUŢOIU L. 1) , CRISTEA M. 1) , VOICEA I. 1) , APOSTOL L. 2) , MATEI GH. 3) , POPA D. 4), UNGUREANU N. 5) , BIRIŞ S.ŞT. 5) , PARASCHIV G. 5) , EPURE M. 1) , DUMITRU C 1) 1) INMA Bucharest / Romania; 2) IBA Bucharest / Romania; 3) University Craiova / Romania; 4) SCDA Secuieni / Romania; 5) University Politehnica of Bucharest / Romania E-mail: valentin_vladut@yahoo.com Keywords: juice, sugar, stalk, productivity, pressing. ABSTRACT Sugar sorghum is a technical plant with high energy value due to the high productivity obtained per hectare. By pressing of sugar sorghum strains it can be obtained a juice that can be further used in various forms: alcohol, ethanol, etc. INTRODUCTION The main energy crops include maize, sugar cane, sweet sorghum, switchgrass, cassava, and other less known varieties. The maize has been traditionally used in the U.S for ethanol production; in Brazil, sugar cane is widely planted as raw material for ethanol production. A crop with enormous potential for ethanol production is sorghum, due to its high content of juice in the stalks (especially). Also, sorghum is the second most important feed grain grown in the U.S. in terms of planting acreage, and is also planted on large surfaces in India and several countries in Africa. Grain sorghum is a high biomass which can produce not only grains but also bagasse, and both can serve as raw materials for juice production. Of all sorghum species, Sorghum bicolor has the highest potential for mass production of juice and ethanol. Sorghum bicolor, better known as sweet sorghum, has three different components which can be used for ethanol production: grain, bagasse, and the juice [1, 2]. The juice extracted from plant stalks contains plenty of sugars, such as sucrose, glucose, and fructose, which can be directly converted via biological fermentation process into ethanol [3, 4]. Sweet sorghum is an ideal energy crop because it possess the following properties that would enable it to accumulate biomass: high conversion efficiency of light into biomass energy, high water use efficiency and high leaf level nitrogen use efficiency [5], the ability to grow in marginal land areas [6], and a relatively high tolerance to soil constraints such as salinity and water concentration [7]. Sorghum is a very old crop, which is grown for grains, brooms manufacturing, juice, syrup rich in sugar, animal feed as silage or green fodder. Sorghum beans are used directly in the nutrition of people in the form of flour in some areas of Africa, India, China, the Middle East and Egypt. In food industry, sorghum is used in the manufacture of starch, alcohol and beer, in combination with barley beans. Also, a sweet juice rich in sucrose is extracted from the sweet sorghum and it has many uses. As animal feed, sorghum can be used either as fibrous feed, silage or grains, and it has a nutritional value similar to that of maize. As green fodder, brought to you by CORE View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk provided by Annals of the University of Craiova - Agriculture, Montanology, Cadastre Series