Patent ID: 9068205
Filing Date: 2015-06-30
Classification: A23K,C11B,C12P,F02C,F26B,Y02E,Y02P

Abstract:
1. 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.