Back to results
US 2007/0199894 A1Published application
By-products from fermentation still bottoms
AssigneeNouvEau Inc.
InventorsThomas Peyton, Birgitte Ahring, Lars Rohold
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Loading patent…
Loading patent…
AssigneeNouvEau Inc.
InventorsThomas Peyton, Birgitte Ahring, Lars Rohold
Estimating the term…
The disclosed invention is an improved method for treating ethanol distillation still bottoms by recovering, through solids separation and pressurized membrane filtration, pure water from still bottoms for human consumption or reuse, and concentrating the solids with beneficial properties recovered before anaerobic digestion. The invention is an improved process because it can reduce the volume of solids to manage, recovers the water from the fermentation still bottoms while pasteurized, maintains the chemical and physical properties of solids for beneficial property recovery, improves ethanol and energy efficiency, and results in clean discharge to the environment including carbon dioxide recovery. A bioreactor produces a gas rich in methane fuel from the concentrate to power the pressurized filtration process and an aqueous ammonia solution to recover or recycle. This invention improves environmental quality, conserves energy, and produces a beverage water for bottling that can be of an organic origin with reliable source and quality.
Means for separating by pressurized microfiltration the coarse solid from the liquid portion of the soluble and insoluble organic and inorganic ethanol fermentation still bottom discharge and separately conveying each said coarse solid and liquid portion at predetermined volumes to a concentrate line for anaerobic digestion and remainder of said liquid portion to a pressure filtration line to further separate solids and liquids to render a potable water product.
A potable water product from ethanol fermentation still bottoms through a process to separate pasteurized still bottom liquid from solid organic and inorganic components by continuously subjecting the still bottom liquid to steps that further separate the organic and inorganic concentrate fractions of solids of lesser weight from the still bottom liquid, whereby the separated solid concentrate fractions are anaerobically digested after beneficial properties recovered, with a sequence of steps to obtain first a predetermined composition and solids content in a rendered liquid consisting essentially of a first step of coarse solids separation by centrifugation or evaporation or microfiltration followed by a pressurized membrane filtration step to further separate solids as selected from the group consisting of microfiltration and ultrafiltration and nanofiltration, with the rendered liquid having the predetermined composition and solids content, followed by an adjustment of pH step of the rendered liquid to a predetermined level of pH, followed by a pressurized reverse osmosis step through a semi-permeable membrane of a molecular weight pore size between 50-100 Dalton producing a reverse osmosis concentrate and a reverse osmosis permeate, followed by a finishing step to the permeate, to yield the potable water product of low molecular weight solids of still bottoms used for recycling, discharge, or human consumption by bulk handling or bottling.
A potable water product from ethanol fermentation still bottoms through a process to separate pasteurized still bottom liquid from solid organic and inorganic components by continuously subjecting the still bottom liquid to steps that further separate the organic and inorganic concentrate fractions of solids of lesser weight from the still bottom liquid, whereby the separated solid concentrate fractions are anaerobically digested after beneficial properties recovered, with a sequence of steps first step to produce a predetermined composition and solids content in a rendered liquid selected from the group consisting of solids separation by centrifugation and evaporation and microfiltration and ultrafiltration and nanofiltration and reverse osmosis issuing said rendered liquid, followed by an adjustment of pH step of the rendered liquid to a predetermined level of pH, followed by a pressurized reverse osmosis step through a semi-permeable membrane of a molecular weight pore size between 50-100 Dalton producing a reverse osmosis concentrate and a reverse osmosis permeate, followed by a finishing step to the reverse osmosis permeate to yield the potable water product of low molecular weight solids of still bottoms used for recycling, discharge, or human consumption by bulk transport or bottling.
The process in claim 23 whereby the still bottoms, without the first step to produce a predetermined composition and solids content in a rendered liquid by solids separation, are treated as the rendered liquid and continued to completion steps of adjustment of pH of the rendered liquid to a predetermined level of pH, pressurized reverse osmosis through a semi-permeable membrane of a molecular weight pore size between 50-100 Dalton producing a reverse osmosis concentrate fraction anaerobically digested after beneficial properties recovered and a clear potable liquid reverse osmosis permeate that is finished to render the potable water product of low molecular weight solids of still bottoms used for recycling, discharge, or human consumption by bulk handling or bottling.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.