Bioethanol Production with Membranes

75027-The development of bio-based fuels can help reduce our Nation¿s dependence on imported oil. This project will develop an integrated membrane pervaporation-dephlegmation-dehydration process to separate ethanol from fermentation broth and produce 99+% fuel-grade ethanol. The process is expected to offer significant advantages over conventional distillation technology in the production of ethanol from biomass. In particular, high-flux, moderately-selective membranes will be developed for the dehydration step of the integrated process. By lowering the capital and operating costs, these membranes will increase the competitiveness of the process. Phase I will make composite membranes and evaluate their performance in laboratory tests. A technical and economic analysis of the total process using these membranes will be performed. Commercial Application and other Benefits as described by the awardee: The pervaporation-dephlegmation-dehydration process should allow a large number of small (50 ton per day) fermentable waste biomass streams to be economically converted to ethanol. Such streams are produced in cheese, wine, beer, and sugar production. Distillation is too expensive to use at this scale.