THE MOST OF EVERY KERNEL CORN FIBER
Two corn kernel fiber-to-ethanol plants are under construction, stirring hope that the concept is gaining steam. By Matt Thompson
In October 2018, construction began on Ace Ethanol’s cellulosic ethanol plant in Stanley, Wisconsin. The plant will be the first to incorporate D3Max’s corn kernel fiber-toethanol process, and will help the plant increase its yields and produce higher-protein distillers dried grains with solubles, all without increasing the plant’s
energy consumption. “I believe Ace will be the most efficient ethanol plant in the country, with the highest yield and the lowest energy use per gallon,” says Mark Yancey, chief technology officer for D3Max. BBI International, which publishes Ethanol Producer Magazine, is a large shareholder of D3Max. The relationship between Ace Ethanol and D3Max began in early 2017. “In 2016,
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we raised equity, and with that money, we designed and built a portable, skid-mounted pilot plant,” Yancey says. Once the pilot plant was built, Ace and D3Max signed a contract for Ace to complete the pilot testing of the technology. Testing began in March 2017 and ran nearly every week until October of that year. “I think we ran into unexpected things most every week,
but we learned from them, and we worked through many phases of development in order to come up with what we think is the ideal process for us for converting the fiber to ethanol,” says Neal Kemmet, president and general manager of Ace Ethanol. One issue that became apparent during the piloting was a high level of acid, Yancey says. “We demonstrated very