Technology for producing bioethanol from molasses

Molasses is delivered by rail or truck in tank cars and pumped into above-ground cylindrical storage tanks.

Molasses is divided into two tanks: main molasses and yeast molasses. All molasses is homogenized, acidified, and sterilized. Yeast molasses is used, with the addition of nutrients, to prepare yeast wort for yeast cultivation. The main molasses is used to prepare the main wort for further fermentation through the syruping process.

Concentrated yeast is added to the yeast wort, thereby producing commercial yeast in the yeast generator.

Conversion of the main wort into alcoholic mash
with 12% Et and CO2 release using yeast. The process takes place under constant stirring while maintaining a constant temperature of 34–36°C for 24–48 hours.

Carbon dioxide is removed using alcohol scrubbers and sent for compression. The compressed 99.9% CO₂ is cooled, purified, and filled into cylinders.

In the distillation and rectification columns, 92–95% raw alcohol is separated from the alcoholic mash using steam. The rectification process also yields distiller’s grains, still water, and fusel oil.

The final step in the production of bioethanol is the removal of water from 92–95% crude ethanol through adsorption on molecular sieves, which yields a 99.8% ethanol solution. Bioethanol is the final product of the production process and is stored in tanks.

From the distiller’s grains, a cake with a dry matter content of 30–35% and a distiller’s grains decanter with a dry matter content of 4–8% are separated.

The vacuum evaporation unit removes moisture from the distiller’s grains decant to a dry matter content of 30%. Is it possible to further dry the decant to a dry matter content of 75%????

From molasses stillage cake with 30–35% moisture content, residual moisture is evaporated in a drum dryer until the moisture content reaches ?. The dry product is used as animal feed with a protein content of up to 40%.