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The Minimum Water Consumption of Ethanol Production via Biomass Fermentation
The Open Chemical Engineering Journal
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18 Jan 2008 •
RESEARCH ARTICLE
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DOI: 10.2174/1874123100802010001
Abstract
The water consumption of fermentation-based bio-ethanol production has recently begun to attract public attention. We calculate a minimum consumption of 2.85 gal water/gal of ethanol produced assuming zero liquid discharge and otherwise current industrial practice data. Including cooling tower blowdown and drift this value may increase to on the order of 4 gal water/gal of ethanol produced. Reduction of the thermal energy input to the process is vital to reduce this irretrievable water consumption.
