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The system setup follows the three main areas of a bioethanol plant: first, raw material and fermentation; second, distillation and drying; and third, auxiliary plants
substances like ammonia in their production process, Inbicon only works with water, enzymes, and yeast. This process is much more efficient because it eliminates the cleaning process and prevents waste materials. Straw is cut for the production process and then heated under pressure and broken down by enzymes. The molecular lignin melts during the heat treatment. This step lets enzymes from Danisco Genencor and Novozymes transform the cellulose fibres of the straw into sugar. The next process step takes place after cooling. Ethanol is produced by adding yeast and the ethyl alcohol produced is isolated by distillation. The last process step is dehydration. Water is removed from the alcohol for use as fuel. The entire process results in bioethanol with a purity level of more than 99%. This process turns four tonnes of straw into 17,000 litres of bioethanol per hour in the Kalundborg
biofuels international
plant every day. All residual materials created in the production further increase profitability of the plant. More than 11,000 tonnes of cattle
for switchgear units and the use of plug-in modules proved to be a good choice as changes could be made at any time and within the agreed
This process turns four tonnes of straw into 17,000 litres of bioethanol per hour in the Kalundborg plant every day feed are produced from the C5 molasses and about 13,000 tonnes of pellets, which are used as combustible fuel, are produced from the lignin. The equipment choices Geafol transformers were installed during the construction phase in January 2009 and integrated with appropriate fire protection. The modular design concept
budget. Other adjustments to the switchgear became necessary, mainly due to changes in the performance characteristics resulting from newly added or larger equipment, such as frequency converters and direct and reversible drives. Pump drives for flow control, for example, are governed with Siemens frequency converters. In distillation, motors with explosion protection are used.
The challenge during the engineering phase was to match the field devices with their specific properties to the constantly refined process design, and finally, 697 measuring instruments were required. The production processes are complex, but Inbicon was able to program the core processes independently due to the close coordination with and support from Siemens. All programmers underwent training at the start of the project and were constantly coached. The factory acceptance test (FAT) for the Simatic PCS 7 process control system took place as scheduled in June 2009. Installation and commissioning has been successfully completed within the given time schedule without any delay and therefore the plant could be inaugurated during the Copenhagen Climate Change conference in December 2009. Conclusion Up to now, the system has been in continuous production.Since the pilot plant was started up, different feedstocks have been tested and the technology optimised. Inbicon benefitted from the flexibility of the delivered Siemens automation solution. In the meantime, Inbicon developed commercial models to process 200,000 to 400,000 tonnes of biomass per year from wheat straw, corn stover, sugar bagasse and other nonfood biomass. Inbicon offers licenses for its technology to build commercialscale biomass refineries worldwide and Siemens will be a reliable partner for these projects as well. l
For more information: This article was written by Ute Forstner marketing manager of Chemical Industries at Siemens. Visit: www.siemens.com/biofuels
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