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Bioethanol Production Process

Bioethanol is produced through a 5-step fermentation process of crops like wheat, maize and barley. The process involves milling the crops, converting the starch to sugars, fermenting the sugars with yeast to produce ethanol and carbon dioxide, distilling and drying the ethanol. At some plants, bioethanol can also be produced directly from sugar syrups without the initial milling and starch conversion steps. Advanced plants employ additional processing steps to produce food and animal feed coproducts alongside the bioethanol.

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227 views

Bioethanol Production Process

Bioethanol is produced through a 5-step fermentation process of crops like wheat, maize and barley. The process involves milling the crops, converting the starch to sugars, fermenting the sugars with yeast to produce ethanol and carbon dioxide, distilling and drying the ethanol. At some plants, bioethanol can also be produced directly from sugar syrups without the initial milling and starch conversion steps. Advanced plants employ additional processing steps to produce food and animal feed coproducts alongside the bioethanol.

Uploaded by

writeandrewpaul7707
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Bioethanol

Production processes
Bioethanol is a natural product and is manufactured by the fermentation of plants containing sugar
and starch. In our plants we produce bioethanol from renewable raw materials and from raw alcohol of
agricultural origin.

Our plant in Zeitz produces bioethanol from wheat, maize, barley or triticale as well as from sugar
syrups.

At this plant the production of bioethanol from starch-containing cereals takes place in five steps:

1. Milling, i.e. the mechanical crushing of the cereal grains to release the starch components
2. Heating and addition of water and enzymes for conversion into fermentable sugar
3. Fermentation of the mash using yeast, whereby the sugar is converted into bioethanol and CO2
4. Distillation and rectification, i.e. concentration and cleaning the ethanol produced by distillation
5. Drying (dehydration) of the bioethanol
Bioethanol can also be produced directly from sugar syrups. This dispenses with steps 1 and 2, which
serve to prepare the grain for fermentation.

Production processes > Bioethanol > CropEnergies AG


http://www.cropenergies.com/en/Bioethanol/Produktionsverfahren/
Page last modified on 2016-01-08 23:05 Page 1

CropEnergies AG
At the next-generation bioethanol plant in Wanze the bioethanol is produced from wheat and sugar
syrups. However, the production process is different as it incorporates a different energy concept and
produces different food and animal feed products:

1. The wheat is cleaned and ground in a mill. The bran is separated from the wheat grains and is
used to generate primary energy in a biomass plant.
2. The next processing step separates the gluten from the rest of the grain.
3. By adding enzymes the starch contained in the wheat is converted into fermentable
carbohydrates, which can then be fermented into alcohol. Sugar syrups can be fermented directly.
4. In the next step, the fermentation process, yeasts convert the carbohydrates into alcohol and
CO2. The alcohol-containing mixture that is produced is referred to as "mash".
5. Distillation separates the alcohol from the other constituents of the mash.
6. In the rectification process this alcohol is then cleaned again. The dehydration - also referred to as
drying - of the alcohol then removes virtually all the water it contains. The result is bioethanol with
an extremely high purity of 99.7 vol.-%.
7. The other constituents, the so-called "stillage", are thickened and processed into Concentrated
Distiller's Solubles (CDS).

Production processes > Bioethanol > CropEnergies AG


http://www.cropenergies.com/en/Bioethanol/Produktionsverfahren/
Page last modified on 2016-01-08 23:05 Page 2

CropEnergies AG
Downloads

Fact Sheet bioethanol

Production processes > Bioethanol > CropEnergies AG


http://www.cropenergies.com/en/Bioethanol/Produktionsverfahren/
Page last modified on 2016-01-08 23:05 Page 3

CropEnergies AG
Benefits of European bioethanol
Download (PDF, 322.07 KB)

Schematic diagram of production process of bioethanol and DDGS from grains and
sugar syrups

Download (PDF, 161.99 KB)

Schematic diagram of production process of bioethanol, gluten and CDS

Download (PDF, 98.3 KB)

Production processes > Bioethanol > CropEnergies AG


http://www.cropenergies.com/en/Bioethanol/Produktionsverfahren/
Page last modified on 2016-01-08 23:05 Page 4

CropEnergies AG

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