Claims:claimed is
1) An ethanol based alternate fuel, derived from Lemnaceae species of aquatic plants also known as duckweed, and the starch derived from the plant species with speed of fermentation process determining the quality of ethanol produced and Fuel grade ethanol has been produced from duckweed with two distillation columns and with the difference in boiling points of ethanol (176°F) and water (212°F), the azeotrope mixture is 190 proof containing 95% ethanol and 5% water.
2) The ethanol based fuel as claimed in claim 1, is manufactured by adding the second membrane and a vacuum pipe that could extract out the water molecules.
3) Ethanol in its anhydrous form is manufactured by adding the second membrane and a vacuum pipe for extracting out the water molecules
, Description:The high cost to fertilize duckweed inorganically has made it prohibitive to grow it commercially for producing protein concentrate and ethanol for market demand.
Today major lakes are growing with high pollution loads and this Lemna is available all major lakes and it can become a great solution to pollution cause, in order to overcome this pollution load in this process it is converted Ethanol
Protein concentrate is produced by using the corn ethanol process to remove the starch from duckweed leaving a concentrate of 61% protein and 8% lysine behind. Recycling of the yeast water, after ethanol and solids are removed, to the duckweed growing area makes it possible to grow the duckweed twice its normal size with no outside nitrogen. Duckweed doubles its weight every 24 hours and this process is 100% organic.
The overall objective of the process is to increase food production and diversification of existing farming processes by introducing duckweed as a cash crop for the farmers and a rich organic protein for nutrition worldwide.
To create sustainable food and energy systems
This facility demonstrates the fully integrated processes of the Duckweed processing system. Additionally, the facility enables the full evaluation and development of the process as well as the start-up, shut down and normal operating procedures.
The facility provides valuable operability data that will feed into the larger full-scale commercial plant. In addition to the future use of the pilot plant as a training facility for customer operative training, it will also serve as a tour facility.
A third party engineering firm will perform the scalability study to scale the pilot plant.
The Quality of ethanol depends on the speed of fermentation process.
Slow fermentation leads to formation of vinegar and reduces the proof of ethanol.
Fuel grade ethanol has been produced from duckweed with two distillation columns.
With the difference in boiling points of ethanol (176°F) and water (212°F), the azeotrope mixture is 190 proof containing 95% ethanol and 5% water.
The anhydrous ethanol is planned to be manufactured by adding the second membrane and a vacuum pipe that could extract out the water molecules.
There is a possibility of producing regent ethanol from duckweed by adding a third distillation column, but still no trials have been made yet on that aspect.
The system gives 10 gallons of ethanol per pound of dry protein.