OVERVIEW

The Belmont Bio-Ag ethanol plant will be the sixth ethanol plant in the state of Wisconsin. As part of SymbiosysTM, this plant will have significantly lower environmental impacts and improved energy conversion than a typical installation. The planned use of onsite-generated biofuel as the primary energy source reduces fossil fuel usage and further decreases environmental impacts. Fossil fuel usage planned is primarily for starting the biofuel combustion process, for the flare that is used during product loading, and for standby boiler capability.

The plant has the capacity to produce 50 million gallons of ethanol annually and it will use roughly 18 million bushels of corn per year. Designed by Delta-T Corporation, the technologies used will be the most advanced in the industry.

Ethanol production begins with corn, water, and enzymes that break down the corn and turn its starch into glucose, or sugar. Yeast enzyme is added to the mash and the works ferments two gases, ethanol and carbon dioxide. The CO2 is bubbled off and captured, and the "beer" is distilled, meaning the ethanol is separated from the stillage, which contains high protein fiber liked by beef. The ethanol is concentrated by extracting water, with the Delta-T process using a molecular sieve to remove the last H2O. The resulting product can be sold as pure ethanol but BBA will blend it with 5% gasoline to make the final product denatured ethanol.

Most of the air emissions from a typical ethanol plant come from the process that dries the used grain (distillers wet grain, DWG), not the ethanol refinery. In SymbiosysTM, there is no DWG drying process. The DWG is to be used as cattle feed and as a fuel in the SymbiosysTM combustion system.

Some ethanol plants have been criticized for using more energy to produce the ethanol than they create. The largest energy requirement in ethanol production at a typical plant is the power needed to dry DWG. The SymbiosysTM process eliminates both the dryer (which is fossil-fuel fired) and its required emissions control device (typically a thermal oxidizer, which also consumes fossil fuels). In SymbiosysTM, the vast majority of the power required to produce the ethanol will come from energy recovered from the waste streams within the system and possibly through use of bio-mass from off-site.

EMISSIONS

Learn more about the SymbiosysTM Ethanol Plant emissions.

INPUTS

OUTPUTS