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Title: An Indirect Route for Ethanol Production

Abstract

The ZeaChem indirect method is a radically new approach to producing fuel ethanol from renewable resources. Sugar and syngas processing platforms are combined in a novel way that allows all fractions of biomass feedstocks (e.g. carbohydrates, lignins, etc.) to contribute their energy directly into the ethanol product via fermentation and hydrogen based chemical process technologies. The goals of this project were: (1) Collect engineering data necessary for scale-up of the indirect route for ethanol production, and (2) Produce process and economic models to guide the development effort. Both goals were successfully accomplished. The projected economics of the Base Case developed in this work are comparable to today's corn based ethanol technology. Sensitivity analysis shows that significant improvements in economics for the indirect route would result if a biomass feedstock rather that starch hydrolyzate were used as the carbohydrate source. The energy ratio, defined as the ratio of green energy produced divided by the amount of fossil energy consumed, is projected to be 3.11 to 12.32 for the indirect route depending upon the details of implementation. Conventional technology has an energy ratio of 1.34, thus the indirect route will have a significant environmental advantage over today's technology. Energy savings of 7.48more » trillion Btu/yr will result when 100 MMgal/yr (neat) of ethanol capacity via the indirect route is placed on-line by the year 2010.« less

Authors:
; ;
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
ZeaChem Inc.
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EE)
OSTI Identifier:
841137
DOE Contract Number:  
FG36-03GO13010
Resource Type:
Technical Report
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
08 HYDROGEN; 09 BIOMASS FUELS; BIOMASS; CAPACITY; CARBOHYDRATES; ECONOMICS; ETHANOL; FERMENTATION; HYDROGEN; IMPLEMENTATION; PROCESSING; PRODUCTION; SACCHAROSE; SENSITIVITY ANALYSIS; STARCH; Indirect Ethanol Process

Citation Formats

Eggeman, T, Verser, D, and Weber, E. An Indirect Route for Ethanol Production. United States: N. p., 2005. Web. doi:10.2172/841137.
Eggeman, T, Verser, D, & Weber, E. An Indirect Route for Ethanol Production. United States. https://doi.org/10.2172/841137
Eggeman, T, Verser, D, and Weber, E. 2005. "An Indirect Route for Ethanol Production". United States. https://doi.org/10.2172/841137. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/841137.
@article{osti_841137,
title = {An Indirect Route for Ethanol Production},
author = {Eggeman, T and Verser, D and Weber, E},
abstractNote = {The ZeaChem indirect method is a radically new approach to producing fuel ethanol from renewable resources. Sugar and syngas processing platforms are combined in a novel way that allows all fractions of biomass feedstocks (e.g. carbohydrates, lignins, etc.) to contribute their energy directly into the ethanol product via fermentation and hydrogen based chemical process technologies. The goals of this project were: (1) Collect engineering data necessary for scale-up of the indirect route for ethanol production, and (2) Produce process and economic models to guide the development effort. Both goals were successfully accomplished. The projected economics of the Base Case developed in this work are comparable to today's corn based ethanol technology. Sensitivity analysis shows that significant improvements in economics for the indirect route would result if a biomass feedstock rather that starch hydrolyzate were used as the carbohydrate source. The energy ratio, defined as the ratio of green energy produced divided by the amount of fossil energy consumed, is projected to be 3.11 to 12.32 for the indirect route depending upon the details of implementation. Conventional technology has an energy ratio of 1.34, thus the indirect route will have a significant environmental advantage over today's technology. Energy savings of 7.48 trillion Btu/yr will result when 100 MMgal/yr (neat) of ethanol capacity via the indirect route is placed on-line by the year 2010.},
doi = {10.2172/841137},
url = {https://www.osti.gov/biblio/841137}, journal = {},
number = ,
volume = ,
place = {United States},
year = {Fri Apr 29 00:00:00 EDT 2005},
month = {Fri Apr 29 00:00:00 EDT 2005}
}