South Dakota State University (SDSU) is helping to improve the efficiency of ethanol plants.
The SDSU Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering Department recently invested in small scale, corn milling and ethanol processing equipment to let ethanol plant mangers test process adjustments in order to optimize efficiency.
“This small equipment allows them to test small adjustments and see how they work without the expense or risk associated with testing adjustments in a large ethanol plant,” said Van Kelley, Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering department head. “If adjustments aren’t made correctly at a plant processing 100,000 bushels of corn per day – it ends up being an extremely expensive mistake.”
Kelly and his department recently hosted a two-day seminar for some 20 POET plant engineers and managers who got to try out the new equipment. During the hands-on training, POET engineers and process managers used the processing equipment to test many different operating parameters – moisture content, temperature and time. A new, near-infrared spectroscopy system was used to measure the moisture, fiber, protein and fat in the samples.
“This training is designed to go beyond “here’s how you operate the equipment,” and introduce the science behind the milling,'” said said Operations Engineering Manager Beau Schmaltz. The workshop was tested by POET, but designed for the entire ethanol industry.
In this photo provided by SDSU: Shane Roby, operations engineer for POET is pouring a corn sample into the roller mill that has already undergone one pass through the rollers and aspiration separation. Casey Baumiller, left, associate process engineer and Josh Karaus, quality manager are looking on. Byron Thomas, process automation engineer, seated in the background is inspecting another test sample.