FEATURE: BIOMASS TO LIQUIDS Construction underway at the Pannonia Ethanol plant in Dunaföldár for a doubling of current capacity to make it the largest corn-to-ethanol plant in Europe. Bioenergy Internat ional No 78, 2-2015 11 ”Our Pannonia Gold DDGS is a top-quality GMO-free Hungarian animal feed.” FERENC JÁNOKI Production Manager, Pannonia Ethanol Zrt A key co-product from the plant is dried distillers grains and solubles (DDGS), a high value animal feed product. » simple sugars (saccharification) and added yeast converts the sugars into ethanol and carbon dioxide (CO2). – The actual fermentation takes 50-60 hours and results in a “beer” with about 15 percent ethanol by volume along with grain and yeast residues, said Jánoki. The “beer” is pumped into one of three multi-column distillation units to separate the water with nonfermentable residues, referred to as whole stillage, from the ethanol. – The ethanol leaving the distillation columns is approximately 95 percent by volume. A molecular sieve system removes the remaining water bringing it to 99 percent or higer, explained Jánoki. The fuel-ready ethanol is then pumped to one of two 9 000 m3 onsite storage cisterns. Corn oil and protein The whole stillage is transferred from the bottom of the distillation columns to centrifuges to separate the solids, as a wet cake, from the liquid. The moisture content of the wet cake is around 60-65 percent. The remaining liquid, thin stillage contains about 5-10 percent solids and part is recycled back to the slurry tanks at the start of the process. The remaining volume of thin stillage is sent to the evaporators where it is concentrated into syrup containing 25-50 percent solids. The syrup, which is high in protein and fat content, is mixed back with wet cake, resulting in the product called wet distillers grains and solubles (WDGS). WDGS is suitable for use as a fresh high-protein animal feed ration. – A feature here is a corn oil recovery step. The idea is to recover the oil from the syrup prior to it being mixed with the WDGS, revealed Jánoki, adding that the nonfood grade oil can be used as an animal feed ingredient or feedstock for producing biodiesel. Consisting of a tricanter system and an emulsion concentrate breaker, the system separates and recovers the oil from the post-fermentation syrup stream as it leaves the evaporators. The oil is then pumped to settling tanks where the majority of any residual solids and are wax-bound oil have settled out and pumped back to the process. To increase shelf life and transportability, around three quarters of WDGS is conveyed to a drum dryer and converted into Dry DGS(DDGS), a high value product with 10-14 percent moisture content. – Our Pannonia Gold DDGS is a top-quality GMO-free Hungarian animal feed, remarked Ferenc Jánoki. Expansion in progress From day one the plant was designed and built with capacity expansion in mind. Construction on the 12 ha site is already well underway for a doubling of production to 450 000 m3 ethanol per annum which will make Pannonia the single largest ethanol plant in Europe. The Pannonia Ethanol project has represented to date an overall investment of around EUR 200 million, and it has received project finacing by US, Canadian and Hungarian lenders. It includes a gas-fired combined heat and power plant which supplies the process heat along with some of the electricity needs. Operating 24/7 the plant employs around 120 staff three times the number compared to a US plant of a similar capacity. – We have our own grain purchasing staff as well as our own ethanol and DDGS sales staff. In accordance with Hungarian customs and excise regulations the entire site is fenced-off and has to have 24 hour manned surveillance, remarked Ferenc Jánoki. A change compared to the original plant is that the French company Maguin from Saint-Quentin has been selected to supply the third DDGS dryer. A triple-pass turbo dryer, it has multiple energy coupling and heat recovery integrated across the second ethanol and DDGS production line. According to Maguin the overall energy consumption of the new process line will be about 32 percent less than the original process line ensuring that the future facility complies with the latest EU requirements for greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction. The new line is scheduled to start up this year. Text & photos: Alan Sherrard BI78/4783/AS
Bioenergy no 2 - March 2015
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