Carnegie Mellon University Chemical Engineers have devised a new process that can improve the efficiency of ethanol production, a major component in making biofuels a significant part of the U.S. energy supply.
Carnegie Mellon researchers have used advanced process design methods combined with mathematical optimization techniques to reduce the operating costs of corn-based bio-ethanol plants by more than 60 percent.
The key to the Carnegie Mellon strategy involves redesigning the distillation process by using a multi-column system together with a network for energy recovery that ultimately reduces the consumption of steam, a major energy component in the production of corn-based ethanol.
"This new design reduces the manufacturing cost for producing ethanol by 11 percent, from $1.61 a gallon to $1.43 a gallon,'' said Chemical Engineering Professor Ignacio E. Grossmann, who completed the research with graduate students Ramkumar Karuppiah, Andreas Peschel and Mariano Martin. "This research also is an important step in making the production of ethanol more energy efficient and economical .''
For a long time, corn-based ethanol was considered a questionable energy resource. Today, 46 percent of the nation's gasoline contains some percentage of ethanol. And demand is driven by a federal mandate that 5 percent of the nation's gasoline supply – roughly 7.5 billion gallons – contain some ethanol by 2012.
Corn is most often used to produce ethanol, but it can be made from grains, sugar beats, potato and beverage wastes and switchgrass.
The research was conducted through the Chemical Engineering Department's Center of Advanced Process Decision-making in collaboration with Minneapolis-based Cargill, an international provider of food, agricultural and risk management services and products.
"As a result of the explosive growth of the U.S. fuel ethanol industry, we decided to collaborate with Professor Grossmann's team to verify how process synthesis tools could be applied to improve the production of ethanol from corn. The work done at Carnegie Mellon demonstrated the potential for considerable capital and energy cost savings in the corn to ethanol process. We look forward to the time when the tools developed by Carnegie Mellon researchers will become part of industry's new toolkit for making the process even more economical and sustainable," said Luca C. Zullo, technical director of Cargill Emissions Reduction Services.
Source: Carnegie Mellon University
Related stories:
Agricultural engineer suggests low-energy alternative to high-temperature grain drying
A little-used grain-drying technique can help farmers control energy costs, according to an Ohio State University agricultural engineer.
Alternative Renewable Bio-Fuel Sources: Camelina Sativa and Switchgrass
INEOS Enterprises of the UK has entered into a partnership agreement with Great Plains-The Camelina Company for the purpose of expanding their bio-diesel enterprises world-wide. Great Plains-The Camelina Company is located in Montana and their achievements include establishing Camelina (oil seed) crushing machines and production facilities for creating bio-fuels. Switchgrass test plots at Auburn University have produced a five-year average of 11.5 tons of bio-mass equivalent to 1,150 gallons of ethanol per acre per year.
Smart Home exhibit mixes cool green design with easy high-tech living
Just inside the first floor of Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry's Smart Home, a 20-year-old re-covered Crate & Barrel sofa flanks a cool-to-the-touch, ethanol-burning fireplace that floats in the middle of the room. The flame can also be seen from any of the six thrift-store dining chairs revived in creamy white faux leather and tucked in around the high-sheen, rough-edged slab of a fallen Michigan ash tree given new life as a sculptural table.
New technique makes corn ethanol process more efficient
(PhysOrg.com) -- Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis are proposing to borrow a process used in breweries and wastewater treatment facilities to make corn ethanol more energy efficient. They are exploring the use of oxygen-less vats of microorganisms that naturally feed on organic waste produced from the ethanol fermentation process.
A better way to make hydrogen from biofuels
Researchers here have found a way to convert ethanol and other biofuels into hydrogen very efficiently. A new catalyst makes hydrogen from ethanol with 90 percent yield, at a workable temperature, and using inexpensive ingredients.
Novel fungus helps beetles to digest hard wood
A little known fungus tucked away in the gut of Asian longhorned beetles helps the insect munch through the hardest of woods according to a team of entomologists and biochemists. Researchers say the discovery could lead to innovative methods of controlling the invasive pest, and potentially offer more efficient ways of breaking down plant biomass for generating biofuels.
Turning Waste Material into Ethanol
(PhysOrg.com) -- Say the word “biofuels” and most people think of grain ethanol and biodiesel. But there’s another, older technology called gasification that’s getting a new look from researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory and Iowa State University. By combining gasification with high-tech nanoscale porous catalysts, they hope to create ethanol from a wide range of biomass, including distiller’s grain left over from ethanol production, corn stover from the field, grass, wood pulp, animal waste, and garbage.
DOE JGI Director highlights the genomics of plant-based biofuels in the journal Nature
Genomics is accelerating improvements for converting plant biomass into biofuel—as an alternative to fossil fuel for the nation's transportation needs, reports Eddy Rubin, Director of the U.S. Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute (DOE JGI), in the August 14 edition of the journal
Nature. In "Genomics of cellulosic biofuels," Rubin lays out a path forward for how emerging genomic technologies will contribute to a substantially different biofuels future as compared to the present corn-based ethanol industry—and in part mitigate the food-versus-fuel debate.