Ethanol Process: Creating Environment Friendly Fuel

Many environmentalists all over the world recommend the use of ethanol instead of fossil fuel. Note that ethanol process is considered as less invasive to the environment compared the extraction of fossil fuels. Moreover, the by products of burning ethanol fuel inside an ethanol engine is less harmful to the environment compared to fossil fuel.

Despite the fact that ethanol has been promoted by environmentalist all over the world, not many people around the world ready understand how ethanol fuel is created. When you ask people on the street about ethanol process, not many people can really give you any useful information about ethanol process or ethanol production. To satisfy our curiosity regarding ethanol production process, let us look into how this type of fuel is created.

Ethanol Production Process

The ethanol production process is not really as complicated as you imagine it to be. No, you are not required to dig a hole into the earth or use heavy equipments to move the soil and extract ethanol from the soil. Unlike fossil fuel, ethanol does not come from the earth per se but rather from certain types of plants.

In the United States, corn is the most popular source of ethanol fuel. Sugarcane is also a good source of ethanol fuel but since sugarcane is not really as easy to grow on American soil compared to corn, most producers of ethanol fuel prefer to use corn. According to surveys, thousands of acres of farm lands in the United States are now planted with corn not for purposes of food production but rather for ethanol fuel production.

There are at least basic steps involved in the ethanol production process. First, you mill the corn and turn it into find powder. Second, you liquefy the corn powder with the use of high temperature cooker. The third step is what we call the sacchrification, where the liquefied corn powder is turned into fermentable sugar. The fourth step in the ethanol production process is fermentation.

This part of the ethanol production process usually takes 48 hours. The fifth, sixth and seventh steps are distillation, dehydration and denaturing while the final stage of the ethanol production process is creation of by-products or co-products. The creation of by-products or by-products is very important to minimize wastage. Most companies that are producing ethanol fuel use the by-products of ethanol to produce other useful things. This means that during the ethanol production process, nothing is wasted to thrown away.