Team:Purdue/Practices

• INTRODUCTION
• BACKGROUND
  • The Problem
  • Organisms
  • Enzymes
• PROJECT
  • Description
  • Project Development
  • Our Solution
• PARTS
  • Team Parts
  • Basic Parts
  • Composite Parts
  • Part Collection
  • Parts Used
  • Parts Submitted
• NOTEBOOK
• ATTRIBUTIONS
• OUR PROCESS
• HUMAN PRACTICES
• SAFETY
• MODELING

Human Practices

Meeting with Industry

To better inform our design and to get a better understanding of current ethanol production practices, our team visited an industrial ethanol plant on July 24, 2015. The Cardinal Ethanol plant located in Union City, Indiana converts corn into ethanol and DDG’s (dried distillers grains) and sells these products mainly to gasoline producers (for blending) and animal feed companies. The facility we visited produces around 100 million gallons of ethanol annually and operates 365 days a year.

After touring the facility, we were able to sit down with the plant manager and Cardinal’s corn stock buyer to discuss the future of ethanol in general and their perceptions of cellulosic ethanol and synthetic biology.

The Purdue Biomakers touring the outside of the Cardinal Ethanol facility

Impact on Project Design

After touring the facility and speaking with the plant manager, our team realized that cellulosic ethanol will have many barriers in addition to lignin degradation before it ever becomes a widespread fuel alternative. Even if the technological challenges of converting the biomass to ethanol were overcome, there would still be many issues relating to input supply and processing. For example, there is already a well­established method to harvest the corn kernel and transport it to the ethanol plant but no similar method exists for harvesting the corn stover, or the leaves and stalks of the crop. If cellulosic ethanol becomes a reality, we would need to find a way to get agricultural waste off the field and into an ethanol plant. Pre­existing equipment would likely need to be customized or designed from scratch to fit the needs of the different feedstock.