RedOrbit - Science - Ethanol Dazzles Wall Street, White House

RedOrbit - Science - Ethanol Dazzles Wall Street, White House: "Inside the ethanol plant, corn is ground and mixed with water to make mash. It is heated and mixed with enzymes to convert starch into sugar and fermented with yeast to make alcohol - just like making moonshine. Hanging in the air around the 500,000-gallon fermenting tanks is the smell of sweet, white wine.

The mixture is kept just below 90 degrees Fahrenheit. Yeast seem happier below that temperature, general manager Owen Shunkwiler hollers over the hum. Shunkwiler works for South Dakota-based Broin Companies, which invested in Tall Corn and is responsible for its operations.

After fermentation, the mixture is boiled to remove water, then dehydrated to boost the alcohol content. Before leaving the plant, a denaturant, or poison, is added to make the alcohol unfit for drinking. Then the ethanol is ready for shipping to fuel storage terminals that will blend it with gasoline as it goes into trucks for distribution to gas stations.

Also yielded in the process is livestock feed. Corn kernels minus the starch are left over - think South Beach for cows. Every 56-pound bushel makes about 17.4 pounds of grain feed, according to the Agriculture Department.

Tall Corn produces 150,000 gallons of ethanol each day, enough to power an estimated 272 cars for an entire year if they ran o"


Catatan tentang proses jagung - etanol - bio-disel.