July 2005 - GEA Wiegand has established a complete biotechnological line
for the conversion of poly- and monosaccharides into ethanol on a laboratory
scale at their Research and Development Centre. The newest knowledge from
science and technology has been taken as a basis for the development of the
plant. This multipurpose plant can process educts containing sugar such as
molasses and cane juice as well as cereals containing starch, tubers and roots
such as rye, barley, wheat, potatoes and cassava, into ethanol.
With the new laboratory plant the entire laboratory and analysis complex
around the biotechnological process has been brought up to date. This includes
state-of-the-art laboratory equipment for screening of enzymes and yeast and
analysis equipment such as gas chromatographs and high-performance liquid
chromatographs. In the future, many new process applications will be quickly
and expertly advanced up to their industrial implementation with the aid of
this facility.
For many years, GEA Wiegand has already designed and supplied
process lines for the production of alcohol, from the treatment of the raw
material up to the final product and processing of the residues. Based on this
know-how the company now builds large plants for the production of ethanol in
the fuel industry. The additional technology required for the dehydration of
ethanol by means of molecular sieves has been especially developed by GEA
Wiegand and has already been successfully implemented in several large plants.