Processes and systems for dry-milled corn ethanol and corn oil production with improved carbon footprint

A process for producing ethanol, corn oil, and DDGS from corn, said process comprising:

• (a) introducing corn to a corn fractionation unit configured to substantially separate the germ and the bran from the endosperm, to generate a starch stream containing up to 98% of the starch contained in said corn;
• (b) introducing at least a portion of said starch stream, in the form of an aqueous slurry, to a saccharification unit configured to hydrolyze said starch into glucose;
• (c) introducing at least a portion of said glucose to an aqueous fermentor containing a microorganism to ferment glucose into dilute ethanol and carbon dioxide;
• (d) introducing said dilute ethanol to a distillation unit configured to generate an ethanol-rich distillate (overhead) and a solids-rich still residue (still bottoms);
• (e) introducing said ethanol-rich overhead to an ethanol drying unit configured to generate anhydrous ethanol;
• (f) introducing at least a portion of said germ, or a conditioned form thereof, to an extraction unit configured to extract edible crude corn oil using a solvent;
• (g) drying said solids-rich still residue using a drying gas in a counter-current dryer disposed in a vertically stacked dryer, to generate a dried solids stream;
• (h) cooling said dried solids stream using a cooling gas in a cooler disposed in communication with said vertically stacked dryer, to generate a cooled solids stream comprising distillers' dried grains with solubles (DDGS);
• and
• (i) recovering said anhydrous ethanol, said edible crude corn oil, and said DDGS,
• wherein said DDGS has higher nutritional value than DDGS produced by an otherwise-equivalent process that does not utilize said vertically stacked dryer.