Patent Application
20230138705
Dry milling of corn and other grains is used to prepare feedstock for producing ethanol through fermentation of the starch components in the feedstock grain. The ethanol product output is used in fuel and other applications.
Corn and other grains contain components other than starch, such as fiber, sugars, oil, ash and protein. The fiber components typically contain embedded starch components, which is unavailable for ethanol production and passes through the plant unconverted.
Various methods are available for processing the fiber components of feedstock grain in such a way as to make the resulting starch available for ethanol production. However, heretofore there has not been available an alternative corn cooking system with the advantages and features of the present invention.
The proposed method is a unique method for efficiently processing the fiber component to increase the starch conversion of ground corn. Use of high temperature to cook ground corn or starch containing materials is known in the art. The method of separating out the fiber components first, to reduce the total amount of material that must be heated to high temperature, improves the concept by reducing the amount of steam needed to achieve the same results.
The fiber components are separated from the other components in the ground corn by use of a flour screening device. The ground corn is diverted to the flour screening device to separate the ground corn into two streams. A fine particulate flour which will contain most of the starch will pass through the screen and be sent back to the ethanol plant untreated. The larger particle fiber components will be diverted to the new process where the material will be exposed to very high temperature conditions, above 250° F., to allow the embedded starch components in the fiber to be removed from fiber and made available for fermentation to ethanol. The treated fiber components are sent back to the ethanol plant and blended back with the starch containing flour stream.
By separating the fiber components out of the ground corn first, the high temperature process used will be more efficient as less steam will be required for this system as only 50% of the ground corn components will need to be treated. This will keep the steam usage minimized.
The drawings constitute a part of this specification and include exemplary embodiments of the present invention and illustrate various objects and features thereof.
As required, detailed aspects of the present invention are disclosed herein; however, it is to be understood that the disclosed aspects are merely exemplary of the invention, which may be embodied in various forms. Therefore, specific structural and functional details disclosed herein are not to be interpreted as limiting, but merely as a basis for the claims and as a representative basis for teaching one skilled in the art how to variously employ the present invention in virtually any appropriately detailed structure.
Certain terminology will be used in the following description for convenience in reference only and will not be limiting. The words, “inwardly” and “outwardly” refer to directions toward and away from, respectively, the geometric center of the aspect being described and designated parts thereof. Said terminology will include the words specifically mentioned, derivatives thereof and words of similar meaning.
Ground corn 105, diverted from an existing plant 50, is fed to a flour screen 100 with sufficient screens to allow for separation of the ground corn 105 into three separate components. Unground corn 130, will be removed and sent back to the plant 50. Fine particulate flour 110 will pass through the screens and is fed to a flour mix tank 200. Process water 205 from the existing plant 50 is mixed with the flour to produce a flour slurry, 210, at about 30% wt solids. The flour slurry 210 is pumped to the slurry mixer 600.
Larger particulate fiber components, which are shown at 120, are separated by the flour screen 100 and diverted to a fiber mix tank 300. Process water 305, from the existing plant 50, is mixed with the fiber components 120 to produce a fiber slurry 310 at about 30% wt solids. The fiber slurry 310, is pumped and fed to a high temperature jet cooker 400, where high pressure steam 405, from the existing plant 50, is mixed with the fiber slurry 310, to produce a high temperature slurry 410 at above 250° F.
The high temperature slurry 410 is fed to a high temperature cook tube 500, where the mixture will be kept at above 250° F. for approximately 10 minutes. After being held in the high temperature cook tube 500, the cooked fiber 510 will be fed to the slurry mixer 600 where the cooked fiber 510 is blended with the flour slurry 210 to produce a stream of warm slurry 610 at approximately 185° F., which is sent to the existing ethanol plant 50.
It is to be understood that while certain embodiments and/or aspects of the invention have been shown and described, the invention is not limited thereto and encompasses various other embodiments and aspects.
This application is a continuation-in-part of and claims priority in U.S. Patent Application No. 63/273,014 filed Oct. 28, 2021 which is incorporated herein by reference.
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 63273014 | Oct 2021 | US |
