Important Lower Cost Technology Demonstrated for Ethanol Production

GreenField Ethanol and Vaperma, announced they have completed a successful trial demonstration of new technology to save 40% of the energy costs of the ethanol production processs by using Verpanas new membranes to seperate water from an alcohol-water mixture producing a 99 per cent fuel-grade ethanol product that will dramatically improve the ethanol production process. The Vaperma process allows for significant energy savings because the membrane eliminates distillation and molecular sieve units.

GreenField Ethanol, Canada’s largest ethanol producer while Vaperma is an emerging developer, manufacturer, and supplier of advanced hollow polymer fiber membrane gas separation systems.

Vaperma’s process is unique to the industry and has the potential to revolutionize the alcohol production process. Their Siftek™ polymeric membrane system allows high selective separation of water from various gas mixtures and organic vapors. Vaperma membranes are heat and solvent resistant. Membrane based technology offers an alternative to conventional processes for the “dewatering” of ethanol and natural gas and the removal of CO2.

Vaperma Siftek™ membrane enables the dewatering of a 40:60 ethanol to water vapor mixture into a 99+% w/w fuel-grade ethanol product. There is no need to distill (rectify) the ethanol/water blend after evaporation. By replacing the distallation column and the molecular sieve used in a conventional ethanol plant, energy savings as high as 40 % are possible with the innovative membrane permeation process developed by Vaperma. This is equivalent to a cost reduction of 6.4 ¢/Gal (1,7¢/L).

Water vapor permeates across the membrane at a much greater flux than ethanol. The high permeability of water is due to its relatively high adsorption and high diffusion rate in the membrane. The higher selectivity and permeance of water compared to ethanol are attributed to the unique polymer formulation and the membrane fabrication process. The system can be operated at high temperatures and is resistant to solvents. The expected lifetime of the membrane modules is more than three years.

Vaperma Siftek™ membranes are made of polymers, which are extruded into thousands of hollow fibers using a wet/dry-phase, inversion-spinning process. A typical membrane module contains thousands of fibers that are embedded into a thermoset resin that is permanently bonded to a fixture ring seal to form a removable cartridge that is inserted into a pressure vessel.

A typical separation unit comprises modules that are 150 to 250 mm in diameter and 2000 to 4000 mm in length, with a hollow-fiber membrane wall thickness of 0.2 mm and skin thickness of 2000 Å.

The feed gas flows into the membrane modules, which contain multiple hollow fibers packed in a shell and tube configuration. Ethanol is "dewatered" by selective permeation of water vapor through the membrane. Water vapor is carried away in the permeate stream at low pressure. The separation unit typically operates under a total pressure of 1 to 1.5 bar within the capillary tubes and a vacuum outside of the membranes.

No liquid effluent waste is generated. The resulting permeate is essentially a stream of water that can be recycled to the front end of the ethanol plant, hence reducing the amount of make-up water. Less fossil fuel energy consumed means less GHG generated.

The pilot dewatering membrane process is scheduled to go into production in the fall of 2007 with a production capacity of 20 m3 per day.

Thanks to Clean Break for the tip.

Comments

[Mark Vane]

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[amazingdrx]

Save 100% of the energy used for making ethanol? Don't make it.

Use renewable electricity in plugin hybrids instead. Enough with ethanol. it's a huge boondoggle wasting scarce capital, water, and energy from oil (of all things?).

[Calamity]

Yes, why would you want to burn perfectly good alcohol?

[Tim]

This technology will be highly beneficial when producing ethanol or better yet Bio-Butanol from NON-FOOD cellosic feedstock sources that DON’T require replanting, watering or fertilizing such as perennial switch grass, waste woodchips or spent biodiesel Algae. Not only will this save thermal energy but the separated process water can be recycled more easily.

[Calamity]

So how much does this improve EROI of corn ethanol and cellulosic?

[Saul Wall]

"Use renewable electricity in plugin hybrids instead."

Since plug in hybrids still need some fuel this is not an argument against ethanol since plug in ethanol hybrids are possible.

"Enough with ethanol. it's a huge boondoggle wasting scarce capital, water, and energy from oil (of all things?)."

This article describes large savings of energy and water from just one technology. There are other technologies aiming to do the same thing. Might it not be somewhat early to dismiss this process especially if Ethanol is used as a starting chemical for the synthesis of another liquid fuel?

Even if ethanol is not used for a vehicle fuel in the long term, it is a very important chemical in industry and would become more so if certain alternatives made from petroleum were to become more expensive due to rising oil prices. Being able to produce it using less energy and water is a very good thing.

[abbott-associates]

This could really represent a significant breakthrough in ethanol processing. Even if there were no net cost savings as implied in the post, the reduction in energy usage for ethanol processing would be a huge plus - it takes a lot of energy to distill the ethanol-water azeotrope out of an aqueous environment. This will be particularly positive when cellulosic ethanol is commercial.

[JohnBo]

This is a great step forward. I remember when only the military had reverse osmosis water purification and now I have a small system on my farm. If a similar development can take place for ethanol we may be able to buy a self contained small system that would supply our energy needs from farm waste. These types of advances are positive and rather amazing. The future of energy supply looks good when one reads the Energy Blog. Thanks Jim for spreading the news.

[averagejoe]

JohnBo,

The website below describes a way to use Zeolite as sort of a "Poor Man's" molecular sieve. You'd still have to distill the ethanol first, but supposedly zeolite lets you remove that last little bit of water that distillation can't. Might be useful on a farm... or in a Mad Max scenario. Who knows.

http://running_on_alcohol.tripod.com/id26.html

[Mack]

I dont see a saving @ 40% but yes it is a good developement. Can you explain me about costing of the memberane.

[Craig]

France generates some 75% off their electrical needs via small nuclear power plants. Yet we don't consider this source at all.

[Craig]

France generates some 75% off their electrical needs via small nuclear power plants. Yet we don't consider this source at all.