Monday, April 6, 2009

Thar Process may bring a change on bioethanol recovery

Currently, bioethanol producers are facing another challenging time in its history for viability due to the bad economic situation, volatile commodity markets, and high feedstock cost (if use corns). Some corn-based ethanol producers have been forced to file for bankruptcy before any cellulosic ethanol commercialization takes off.

The key to change the fate of corn-cellulosic ethanol production is still upon the product cost. Cheap feedstock is the first priority. However, any new ideas or technologies that can drop current production cost will be expected in this industry.

Recently, Thar Process receives grant from the state of Pennsylvania for distillation replacement technology, i.e.use a high-pressure propane extraction to remove the high volumes of water from fermented broth and recover bioethanol to replace an existing ethanol plant’s conventional distillation. The propane used in the extraction process can be recycled; a significant energy savings is expected to save from bypassing the conventional distillation and molecular sieve drying steps.

We are looking forward to seeing the progress and economic evaluation of the process.

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