Vacuum Stripping of Ethanol during High Solids Fermentation of Corn

In corn-ethanol industry, yeast stress inducing glucose concentrations produced during liquefaction and subsequent high ethanol concentrations produced during fermentation restrict slurry solids to 32 % w/w. These limits were circumvented by combining two novel technologies: (1) granular starch hydrolyzing enzyme (GSHE) to break down starch simultaneously with fermentation and (2) vacuum stripping to remove ethanol. A vacuum stripping system was constructed and applied to fermentations at 30, 40, and 45 % solids. As solids increased from 30 to 40 %, ethanol yield decreased from 0.35 to 0.29 L/kg. Ethanol yield from 45 % solids was only 0.18 L/kg. An improvement was conducted by increasing enzyme dose from 0.25 to 0.75 g/g corn and reducing yeast inoculum by half. After improvement, ethanol yield from 40 % solids vacuum treatment increased to 0.36 L/kg, comparable to ethanol yield from 30 % solids (control).