AUG 20

New ways to improve corn ethanol production has been the focus of quite a bit of research. Increasing the efficiency of the production process of ethanol is the bull’s eye for researchers at Washington University. They have found a way to coax bacteria into breaking down the waste during the process, which releases large amounts of methane that can be pumped back into the plant to power it, closing the loop a little and cutting down on the amount of power a plant needs to produce ethanol.

This anaerobic digestion system can cut an ethanol plant’s use of natural gas by as much as 50%, as well as significantly cut the amount of greenhouse gas emissions.

Those are some serious numbers, considering researchers at the University of Minnesota found that ethanol provides only 26% more energy than what is used to produce it. Not much of a return on investment. This new process utilizing bacterial would change that to 70%. A HUGE jump. The numbers may not pan out to be quite as big when the process is done commercially, but it could still make a significant improvement.

The researchers were interested in improving the efficiency because they wanted to see a short-term solution for improving corn ethanol production while we wait for better ethanol products and systems – such as cellulosic – to go commercial nationwide. The only problem is getting ethanol plants to go for it. It’s a new system, untested on a large scale, and may take just as long to prove itself as the other ethanol processes in the works, making it not quite the short-term solution the researchers are hoping for.

Nevertheless, having this technology on hand and ready to go is pretty great, and hopefully a couple corn ethanol plants are willing to try it out. The results of the Washington University researchers’ study have been published in Environmental Science and Technology.

Via TechnologyReview; photo via planmygreen

Comments (4)

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written by Grammatics :), August 20, 2008

Please, pleeease either BACTERIA MAKE or BACTERIUM MAKES ;)
bacteria makes is just plain senseless :)

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written by nicster, August 20, 2008

readily available data indicates that ignorance regarding this type of senseless usage is not limited to this particular branch of the tree of life. on the other hand, many datum show existence of distinct ignorance in this regard in the field of computer science.
;)

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Shows serious promise...
written by Benjamin, August 21, 2008

Wow. That's an incredible increase in efficiency. Hopefully the numbers will scale when done commercially. And whether it works in the short or long term, it's a big step in the direction of energy independence. Hopefully the ethanol producers will be willing to give the tech a shot.

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ethanol
written by Ron, November 29, 2008

We have organic liquid that contains nutrients, carbons and minerals
It also contains C4,C5 and C6 sugars- (food related and wood sugars )
Food related sugars will produce 4% per volume of ethanol
Wood sugars (untested ) will produce 15% per volume of ethanol
Wood sugars, our in house chemist as estimated this figure as we do not have
the right bacteria to turn wood sugars into ethanol via cellulose, We can not get one refinery interested in it here in Australia as it is to hard and they have grain at the finger tips, hope you guys have better luck over their.
We have 100,000 ton per week of this so if you know anyone interested in it let us know.
Thanks
Ron

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