Patent Application
20070036881
This invention relates to a reduction of the amount of drying required of wet distiller's grains in a corn-to-ethanol production facility and more particularly to the use of electrocoagulation and polyacrylamide polymeric flocculation to reduce energy consumption in producing distiller's dried grains with solubles (DDGS).
The principal drive toward using ethanol as a gasoline additive is to more cleanly burn the fuel used in internal combustion engines. Additionally, with increasing depletion of economically recoverable petroleum reserves, the production of ethanol from vegetative sources as a replacement for conventional fossil-based liquid fuels becomes more attractive. In addition to offering promise as a practical and efficient fuel, biomass-derived ethanol in large quantities and at a competitive price has the potential for replacing certain petroleum-based chemical feedstocks. For example, ethanol can be catalytically dehydrated to ethylene, one of the most important of all chemical raw materials both in terms of quantity consumed and versatility in product synthesis.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,409,406, Feldman, is typical of a biomass derived ethanol process with extraction of water from the ethanol.
The article “Reducing Costs of Byproduct Recovery at Dry-Mill Ethanol Plants” by Robert C. Brown, of Iowa State University, www.eiorenew.iastate.edu is a study of the de-watering and drying issues when processing distiller dried grains into ethanol.
It is an object of the present invention to reduce energy costs in such processing.
The object of the present invention is to reduce the amount of drying that takes place in the production of distiller's dried grains with solubles. This reduces auxiliary fuel consumption and reduces costs in corn-to-ethanol plants.
The slurry that remains after corn is fermented and ethanol and water are distilled off is called whole stillage (WStill). Whole stillage contains solids that need to be dried to 10% moisture in a dryer to be sold as distiller's dried grains (DDG) or distiller's dried grains with solubles (DDGS). Prior to the dryer the whole stillage is processed in a centrifuge that generates two streams, wet distiller's grains (WDG), or “wet cake” and the centrate, which is referred to as thin stillage (TStill). In accordance with the invention the suspended solids in the thin stillage are reduced by electrocoagulation and the addition of polyacrylamide polymers.
The foregoing and other objects, features and advantages of the invention will be better understood from the following more detailed description, drawings and appended claims.
In the prior art process of
Referring to
An electro-coagulator suitable for use is shown in
Polyacrylamide has been used in waste water treatment, in making paper and in agriculture. See U.S. Pat. No. 5,942,086, Owen, U.S. Pat. No. 6,131,331, Duffy, Jr., and U.S. Pat. No. 6,632,774, Duffy, Jr., and U.S. Pat. No. 5,891,254, Coville et al.
Commonly used polyacrylamides are random copolymers of the monomers acrylic acid and acrylamide:
A typical anionic flocculant is a copolymer of acrylamide and acrylic acid and is made by inverse emulsion polymerization.
Polyacrylamides have been found to be safe for ingestion by animals. This makes polyacrylamide particularly useful in the process stream of the present invention wherein solid by products are frequently used for animal feed.
Polyacrylamides suitable for use are available from Met-Pro Corporation, Harleysville, Pa. Compositions which are suitable for use are 30-35 mole-percent charge, high and very high molecular weight anionic polyacrylamide polymers in a water-oil emulsion and anionic dry polymer of similar charge and molecular weight
Information on a suitable polyacrylamide follows:
The coagulation mechanism of iron ions is charge neutralization. Particles with like charge repel one another. Removal of the charge enables particles to approach close enough to coagulate using polyacrylamide polymers. This coagulation results from polymer chains bridging particles to create larger masses that settle out and are large enough to be removed. Both cationic polymers and anionic polymers can be used in different circumstances.
Referring again to
The supernatant liquids (Supernate) from the settling tank are pumped to evaporator 14 for further de-watering. The evaporator produces a condensate stream and the solids are concentrated into a fluid called “syrup.” The syrup solids can be increased to 66.5% while the viscosity of the syrup approximately equals typical syrup at 30-40% solids.
Another benefit of the invention includes altering the settings of the centrifuge 12 to produce drier wet cake (WDG). This further reduces the evaporative loading of dryer 10. Also, a portion of the thin stillage called “backset” is sent to the fermentation stage of the ethanol production process. Reducing the level of suspended solids in the backset allows for additional corn solids to be added to the fermentation stage of the corn-to-ethanol process. This increases ethanol production.
The following tables list exemplary process parameters for operation of the process in accordance with the with the prior art and in accordance with the present invention.
In an exemplary embodiment of the invention, the thin stillage was treated in an electro-coagulator obtained from Kaspar Electroplating Corporation, assignee of the aforementioned Kaspar et al. patent and patent application. Subsequently a 30 mole-percent charged high molecular weight polyacrylamide polymer was added to it. Using data from this testing the Prior Art material balance can be adjusted producing the following material balance. This material balance incorporates the simplifying assumption that the incoming whole stillage flow rate and percent solids is identical to the Prior Art material balance.
It has been found that the ion addition of the electro-coagulator together with the polyacrylamide flocculants provide particularly efficient energy reduction.
It will be understood that various modifications to the process can be made. The appended claims cover all such modifications within the true spirit and scope of the invention.
