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US 2016/0257907 A1Published application
Enhanced Separation of Corn Oil from the Ethanol Manufacturing Process
AssigneeLincolnway Energy, LLC
InventorEric Hakmiller
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Abstract
An ethanol production process and system for recovering high value oil products. The invention includes adding a heated lipid (oil) stream to a thin stillage stream to break the water/oil emulsion and free bound oil then recovering the oil. The process uses oil as the heat transfer mechanism to increase both the volume and quality of the oil recovered.
Claims26
A process for the recovery of oil from an ethanol process comprising:
- processing a feedstock to create a process stream;
- fermenting the process stream to create a post-fermentation process stream;
- separating the post-fermentation process stream into an alcohol stream and a whole stillage stream;
- separating a thin stillage stream from the whole stillage stream, wherein the thin stillage stream includes bound oil;
- introducing a heated lipid stream to the thin stillage stream to create an oil flow stream;
- separating an oil product from the oil flow stream.
3 more elements
A process for the recovery of oil from an ethanol process comprising:
- processing a feedstock to create a process stream;
- fermenting the process stream to create a post-fermentation process stream;
- separating the post-fermentation process stream into an alcohol stream and a whole stillage stream;
- separating a thin stillage stream from the whole stillage stream, wherein the thin stillage stream includes bound oil;
- separating an oil stream from the thin stillage stream to create a lipid stream;
- heating the lipid stream and recycling it to the thin stillage stream;
- recovering an oil product.
4 more elements
A process for the recovery of oil from an ethanol process, said process comprising:
- grinding and wetting a feedstock to create a process stream;
- separating a lipid stream from the process stream;
- fermenting the process stream to create a post-fermentation process stream having an alcohol;
- separating the post-fermentation process stream into an alcohol stream and a whole stillage stream;
- separating a thin stillage stream from the whole stillage stream, wherein the thin stillage stream includes bound oil;
- heating the lipid stream to produce a heated lipid stream;
- and
- introducing the heated lipid stream to the thin stillage stream to create an oil flow stream;
- separating an oil product from the oil flow stream;
- wherein the lipid stream is separated from the process stream before fermentation.
7 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.