Bioethanol plants - Import export

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)

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 process of Cellulosic biomass. Cellulosic biomass is the structural portion of plants and includes agricultural (e.g. Corn Stover, which is the entire above-ground portion of the corn plant, excluding the grain) and forestry (e.g. sawdust) residues, major fractions of municipal solid waste (waste paper and yard waste), and herbaceous (e.g. switch grass) and woody (e.g. poplar) crops grown as energy resources. Although distinctive in outward appearance, these materials all comprise about 40-50 % cellulose and 20-30 % hemicelluloses, with lesser amounts of lignin and other compounds, such as sugars, oils and minerals. Cellulose is a polymer of cellobiose (glucose-glucose) sugar molecules that are physically linked together in a crystalline structure to provide structural support for plants. Within these micro fibrils cellulose is found in two forms, namely amorphous and crystalline. The crystalline form of cellulose is particularly difficult to degrade and typically makes up the core of a lignocellulosic microfibril.

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 Downstream Process. The alcohol in the fermented mash is then concentrated by means of distillation and rectification, before the required water content of ethanol is regulated in the dewatering process. The accrued residues from distillation, the so-called stillage, is first evaporated and then dried to animal feed, the so-called DDGS. However, the production (drying) of DDGS requires a considerable amount of primary energy (e.g. fuel oil or natural gas); therefore, if feedlots are nearby, animal feed will be sold in wet condition, so called WDGS. For sugar cane and molasses the residue, so called vinasses, was returned to the fields as fertilizer- due to sustainability reasons and change in legislation, spraying of vinasses on the fields is mostly forbidden in the meantime. In the past, direct combustion of DDGS turned out to be unfeasible because of procedural difficulties and lacking efficiency (due to the high water content of the stillage). The realisation of a biogas plant could not be achieved in large scale so far because of the enormous quantities of stillage and their high organic stress. Combination of ethanol production with biogas respectively, biomass burning results in different biorefinery concepts or so called next generation technology.