Abstract
The economics of fuel ethanol production from dry-milled corn starch were studied in fluidized-bed bioreactors (FBRs) using immobilized biocatalysts. Glucoamylase immobilized on porous diatomaceous earth was used for hydrolysis of the starch to glucose in a packed-bed reactor. The fermentation of glucose to ethanol was carried out in FBRs using Zymomonas mobilis immobilized in κ-carageenan beads. Volumetric ethanol productivities of up to 24 g/l h were achieved in non-optimized laboratory-scale systems. For a 15 million gal/yr ethanol plant, an economic analysis of this process was performed with Aspen Plus (Aspen Technology, Cambridge, MA) process simulation software. The analysis shows that an operating cost savings in the range of 1.1-3.1 cents/gal can be realized by using the FBR technology. Copyright (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 99-105 |
| Number of pages | 7 |
| Journal | Bioresource Technology |
| Volume | 75 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Nov 2000 |
Funding
This work was supported by the Office of Fuels Development of the US Department of Energy under contract DE-AC05-96OR22464 with Lockheed Martin Energy Research Corporation. The technical support provided by ERRC, USDA is acknowledged. M.S. Krishnan participated in this work as a postdoctoral fellow appointed to the Postdoctoral Research Associates Program, which is administered jointly by the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| Lockheed Martin Energy Research Corporation | |
| Office of Fuels Development | |
| U.S. Department of Energy | DE-AC05-96OR22464 |
| Oak Ridge National Laboratory | |
| Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education |
Keywords
- Economic analysis
- Fluidized-bed bioreactors
- Fuel ethanol
- Immobilization
