Proposal For Senior Design - September 8, 2009
TITLE: Design a Small Ethanol Production Facility
Sponsors: Dr. Calvin Leman (Bio-chemistry) calvin_leman2001@yahoo.com, 208-756-4104, Dr. Fred Templeton (E.E.), Ftempleton@centurytel.net , Willie Mundy <wmundy@ymail.com>; John Treankler <johnhorizons@hammerhead.org>, Charlie Thornton, charlie@commanderchassis.com>, all from Salmon.
Goal: To design an ethanol production plant to produce anhydrous ethanol (fuel grade) from sugar beets as the raw material. The facility will be located in Salmon, ID and the beets will be grown in Lemhi County.
Description: A small group of individuals have formed a non-profit company in Salmon, ID to plan on building a small fuel grade ethanol production facility, output of about 300,000 to 400,000 gallons per year. At about 600-1000 gallons per acre, the raw material would come from 300 to 500 acres of sugar beets, a relatively small acreage for Lemhi Co.
Salmon, ID has a population of about 3000, Lemhi Co. about 8000. The intent would be to supply the needed alcohol to blend and form E-10 (“gasohol”), which is almost universal at gas pumps throughout Eastern Idaho at this time. Average gasoline use is 7.4 gallons per week, which means 2 million gallons of gasoline, are consumed in Lemhi County each year.
The USA produces the bulk of its fuel grade ethanol from corn, requiring first “sacrification” (turning starch to sugar), then fermentation, followed by distillation and final drying to obtain anhydrous alcohol (less than 0.5 % water). Brazil is the world’s major producer of fuel grade ethanol, from sugar cane. Sugar beets have been used in the U.K., Columbia, India and China. The “sacrification” step is not needed for sugar beets, which produce sucrose, not starch.
The energy for the distillation process would be from forest waste and lumber mill waste. Modern energy efficient distillation process design should be utilized, reducing the net energy input to about 20,000 Btu per gallon of ethanol produced.
Also, E-85 has been suggested as a possible final product, because there are no E-85 stations in Eastern Idaho, yet there are a number of flex fuel vehicles in Idaho.
The by-product beet pulp from the beet pressing makes excellent high protein cattle feed, particularly for dairy cattle and could foster the re-opening of the dairy that closed in Salmon. The effluent hot water from the distiller could heat a greenhouse.
Engineering students would be involved in the complete design and analysis, as well as cost estimating to determine if the venture is economical and funding can be found to make the necessary capital investment. The engineering design would include producing and off-loading of the sugar beets, processing them for the fermentation (chopping and crushing), fermentation process design, and finally distillation column design with special emphasis on energy re-utilization.
Types of Students: A team of 4 or 5, consisting of several MEs, one CE, and one EE or computer science student for process control. The chemical engineering/chemistry/bioengineering would be supplied by the main sponsor, Dr. Leman.