Method and systems for enhancing oil recovery from ethanol production byproducts
AssigneeGs Cleantech Corporation
InventorDAVID J. WINSNESS
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Abstract
In one aspect of the invention, a method recovers oil from a concentrated byproduct, such as evaporated thin stillage formed during a dry milling process used for producing ethanol. The method includes forming a concentrate from the byproduct and recovering oil from the concentrate. The step of forming the concentrate may comprise evaporating the byproduct. Further, the step of separating the oil from the concentrate may comprise using a centrifuge and, in particular, a disk stack centrifuge. Other aspects of the invention include related methods and subsystems for recovering oil from thin stillage.
Claims39
A method of processing concentrated thin stillage created during a dry milling process used for producing ethanol from corn, comprising:
- recovering at least a portion of an oil-containing fraction from the concentrated thin stillage;
- and
- evaporating the concentrated thin stillage to reduce a moisture content and form an evaporated thin stillage concentrate, wherein the evaporated thin stillage concentrate has a lower moisture content than the concentrated thin stillage.
A method of recovering usable oil from a thin stillage byproduct resulting from production of ethanol from corn using a dry milling technique, the method comprising:
- removing moisture from an unfiltered thin stillage byproduct to form a concentrated thin stillage;
- recovering at least a portion of the usable oil from the concentrated thin stillage;
- and
- evaporating the concentrated thin stillage to further reduce a moisture content therein.
A method of recovering usable oil from a thin stillage byproduct resulting from production of ethanol from corn using a dry milling technique, the method comprising:
- evaporating the thin stillage byproduct in a multistage evaporator and removing moisture from the thin stillage byproduct to form a first concentrated thin stillage byproduct with a reduced moisture content;
- and
- recovering at least a portion of the usable oil from the concentrated thin stillage byproduct prior to a last stage of the multistage evaporator;
- and
- further evaporating the first concentrated thin stillage byproduct to further reduce the moisture content and form a second concentrated thin stillage byproduct therein subsequent to recovering the at least portion of the usable oil, wherein the second concentrated thin stillage byproduct has a lower moisture content than the first concentrated thin stillage byproduct.
A method for recovering oil in a dry milling process for producing ethanol from corn, the method comprising:
- separating a whole stillage byproduct of the dry milling process with a separator into a distillers wet grains fraction, a thin stillage fraction, and an oily fraction;
- combining the oily and thin stillage fractions;
- evaporating the combined fractions of the oily fraction and the thin stillage fraction to remove moisture and form a concentrate of the oily and thin stillage fractions;
- and
- recovering oil from the concentrate with an additional separator.
A method for recovering oil in a dry milling process for producing ethanol from corn, the method comprising:
- evaporating a thin stillage fraction to form a thin stillage concentrate with a reduced moisture content relative to the thin stillage fraction;
- and
- recovering oil from the thin stillage concentrate with a horizontal centrifugal three phase decanter.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.