POET - Producing Ethanol

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Producing Ethanol

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Producing Ethanol

Producing Ethanol

Ethanol is a clean-burning, high-octane fuel that is produced domestically from renewable sources. As an important part of the U.S. economy, ethanol helps reduce the country's dependence upon foreign sources of energy by eliminating the import of literally millions of barrels of foreign oil. It also keeps energy expenditures right here at home, which delivers economic vitality to the American Heartland, where most ethanol is produced.

Ethanol is basically a grain alcohol produced from corn and other starch based crops. Ethanol is blended with gasoline for use in motor vehicles - from passenger cars to race cars to stunt planes. Ethanol blends increase fuel octane ratings, decrease harmful fossil fuel emissions, reduce costs at the pump and extend our overall supply of gasoline.

The majority of the ethanol in the U.S. is made from corn, but it also can be produced from other feedstocks such as grain sorghum, wheat, barley, potatoes and even sugar cane.

Ethanol can be made by a dry mill or a wet mill process. Most of the ethanol in the U.S. is made using the dry mill method. In the dry mill process, the starch portion of the corn is converted into sugar then fermented into ethanol.

POET™ has made considerable breakthroughs pioneering new technologies that streamline the milling process to make it more efficient. And we've developed revolutionary biotechnologies that fundamentally changed how ethanol is made - by eliminating an energy-intensive step: liquefaction, or "cooking."

The secret is POET's patent-pending BPX™ technology, a process that uses enzymes that convert starch to sugar without cooking. We then ferment that sugar to ethanol. Sound simple? Here's how it works.

The major steps in the POET dry mill process are:

Milling. The feedstock passes through a hammer mill, which grinds it into a fine powder called flour.

Fermentation. Fermentation: Enzymes are added to convert starch into glucose, or simple sugars. Yeast is added to the mash to convert the sugars to ethanol and carbon dioxide. The mash is continually agitated and cooled until the ethanol concentration has been maximized.

Distillation. Distillation: The fermented mash, now called beer, contains about 20% alcohol – significantly above the industry standard - plus all the non-fermentable solids from the corn and yeast cells. The mash is pumped to the continuous flow, multi-column distillation system where the ethanol is removed from the solids and the water. The ethanol leaves the top of the final column at about 95% concentration, and the residue mash, called stillage, is transferred from the base of the column to the co-product processing area.

Dehydration. The alcohol from the top of the column passes through a dehydration system where the remaining water will be removed. Most ethanol plants use a molecular sieve to capture the last bit of water in the ethanol. The alcohol product at this stage is called anhydrous ethanol (pure, without water) and is approximately 200 proof.

Co-Products. There are two main co-products created in the production of ethanol: distillers grain and carbon dioxide. Distillers grains are a highly nutritious livestock feed. Thanks to POET's leading biotechnologies and processes, our Dakota Gold™ brand dried distillers grains meets a higher level of nutritional content and physical consistency than is possible with any other biorefining process. As a result, Dakota Gold is in demand all around the world. We ship it from our plants via truck and rail car.

Carbon dioxide is also a natural result of fermentation. A select few of our plants collect, compress and market it for use in other industries. The carbon dioxide we produce is ultimately reabsorbed by future corn crops, which need CO2 to grow.




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