DECARBONIZATION OF CORN BIOETHANOL VIA RENEWABLE FUEL GAS PRODUCTION FROM BYPRODUCTS

Long-term goals and supporting objectives: Lowering the carbon intensity (CI) of corn-based ethanol is the overarching goal of this project. Specifically, we aim to replace a minimum of 40% of the natural gas used in ethanol manufacture with a renewably sourced fuel gas and achieve a minimum of 18% reduction in ethanol CI through a low temperature (~200 ºC), non-precious metal catalyst facilitated, hydrothermal process without hydrogen addition.Production of fuel gas from thin stillage (TS) - an organics stream internally available within ethanol plants - through a low-temperature catalytic process will require pursuing the following objectives:1. Synthesize, characterize, and identify non-precious metal catalyst(s) to efficiently generate a mixture of methane, carbon monoxide, and hydrogen from the organics present in TS;2. Test identified catalyst(s) in scaled-up batch and continuous flow systems to:generate mass balances and establish fuel gas yields;obtain kinetic parameters; andassess performance stability;3. Develop and validate mitigation strategies such as thin-stillage fractionation and use of sulfur scavengers to overcome catalyst deactivation, as necessary;4. Integrate the proposed technology with heat integration and water management into the current ethanol manufacturing flowsheet;5. Perform a techno-economic analysis (TEA) to determine process economics; and6. Conduct a life cycle assessment (LCA) using GREET to credibly establish the CI reduction in corn-based ethanol's CI.