November 2003 – After three nights of much excitement the road train of 70
m length and 156 tons weight had reached its destination Zörbig in
Saxonia-Anhalt. The road train transported a distillation column of 35 m
length, 70 tons weight and a diameter of 4,600 mm. This column is the core of a
new type of bioethanol plant. GEA Wiegand (Ettlingen) designed and manufactured
the plant at their Beckum/Westphalia workshop in 7 months only. The plant will
produce bioethanol based on state-of-the-art distillation technology. So-called
power alcohol can be produced from raw material containing starch. Power
alcohol as fuel additive significantly helps to save fossil fuel. Using the new
process the plant produces about 330,000 litres of bioethanol per day. This
large-scale order of the engineering company is one of the largest plants for
the production of ethanol.
The distillation plant consists of double-flow sieve tray columns and
downstream molecular sieve. The energy consumption during the production of
alcohol is extremely low: Thanks to highly integrated heat combination the
energy consumption is several times lower than that of conventional plants.
As fuel additive, power alcohol is one of the most important basic
materials for the use of alternative energies, and it reduces the emission of
carbon dioxides and carbon monoxides. In addition, agricultural surpluses and
wheat surplus production can be sensibly used. Another possibility of using
bioethanol is the recovery of ETBE (ethyl tert-butyl ether), which, instead of
carcinogenic MTBE (methyl tert-butyl ether), can be added to the fuel for
stabilization of the knock resistance.