Upstream Process

DSEC's commitment on the construction of Bioethanol plants is based on a very specialized technical knowledge of the Ethanol production processes; in this article you will find a more detailed understanding about the Upstream process. In Europe and the US, the existing traditional 1" generation bioethanol plants typically process cereals (maize/corn, wheat, rye, ...) and other starch or sugar containing raw materials (e.g. sugar beet). The raw material initially undergoes crushing (milling for cereals) to reduce the particle size distribution to such a degree that the enzymes enter in contact with the starch molecules in the subsequent steps. During liquefaction with alpha-amylase, starch is dismantled into low molecular sugar units, the so-called dextrines. In the next process step, saccharification, these dextrines are further dismantled into fermentable sugars by means of gluco-amylase. In the fermentation process, these fermentable sugars are partly aerobically transformed, but mainly anaerobically by Saccharomyces cerevisiae (yeast) into biomass and ethanol; sugar containing raw material as e.g. sugar cane can be directly fed into fermentation after crushing. Upstream process groups: - Storage - Cleaning - Milling / Crushing - Mashing - Liquefaction - Saccharification - Fermentation (batch or continuous)