Dordt awarded funds for ethanol project
Posted: Sunday, May 27, 2007
The Iowa Energy Center has awarded $17,000 to the Dordt College Engineering Department to develop a farm-scale sweet sorghum to ethanol production system.
Vermeer Manufacturing is serving as an industrial collaborator on the project, sharing in its cost. The external funding will be used to demonstrate the viability of small-scale production of ethanol from sweet sorghum for area producers.
Currently, the ethanol industry is predominantly starch based, a system which fits a large scale bio-refinery model. Utilizing a sugar crop, such as sweet sorghum, may enable independent producers to market a new value-added product from their commodities using an alternative approach.
Sweet sorghum has the advantage of producing more ethanol per acre than corn, and does not require the grinding, cooking, and enzyme decomposition used in the corn-based ethanol process. Harvesting and storage of the sweet sorghum feedstock are two significant obstacles that need to be addressed, however.
Overseeing the Dordt College initiative will be Dr. Ethan Brue, associate professor of engineering. Brue has been involved in energy system design and bio-renewable development projects for more 20 years, and grew up on a farm that produced ethanol fuel from sweet sorghum on an experimental basis in the early 1980s. Before coming to Dordt College, he designed and analyzed biomass gasification and combustion units as a research and development engineer for Pioneer Hi-Bred International.
Dordt engineering students involved in this project will explore a variety of system designs and attempt to create a small-scale field-to-fuel process that would be feasible for small scale producers to incorporate into their farm operations.
Brue says that the challenge of the proposed small-scale system design is to minimize capital cost and reduce technical complexity, so the system could be maintained and operated by individual farmers or used cooperatively by a small group of producers.
''This project will result in a working crop-to-fuel process that will demonstrate operation and illustrate challenges relating to small-scale ethanol production,'' he said. ''We hope it will offer information to regional producers about the advantages and opportunities of small-scale systems.''
Dordt's engineering students will be involved in the project, providing training for future leaders in bio-renewable technology development.
''Ultimately, it is the farmer who would benefit from the success of this project,'' Brue said. ''Enabling farmers to move from producing subsidized commodities to marketing a value-added product would aid in strengthening the economic potential of agricultural communities in Iowa.''
The sweet sorghum for the project will be raised at the 160-acre Agricultural Stewardship Center, a farm operated by Dordt for the purpose of ag related research and education. Numerous varieties of sorghum will be evaluated for their suitability for Northwest Iowa growing conditions. Sugar and ethanol yields will be studied under a variety of planting and harvesting scenarios.
The results of this project will be demonstrated to farmers and the general public at Dordt's 2008 fall field days. In addition, public design presentations will be made prior to this field day in the spring of 2008.
Vermeer Manufacturing is serving as an industrial collaborator on the project, sharing in its cost. The external funding will be used to demonstrate the viability of small-scale production of ethanol from sweet sorghum for area producers.
Currently, the ethanol industry is predominantly starch based, a system which fits a large scale bio-refinery model. Utilizing a sugar crop, such as sweet sorghum, may enable independent producers to market a new value-added product from their commodities using an alternative approach.
Sweet sorghum has the advantage of producing more ethanol per acre than corn, and does not require the grinding, cooking, and enzyme decomposition used in the corn-based ethanol process. Harvesting and storage of the sweet sorghum feedstock are two significant obstacles that need to be addressed, however.
Overseeing the Dordt College initiative will be Dr. Ethan Brue, associate professor of engineering. Brue has been involved in energy system design and bio-renewable development projects for more 20 years, and grew up on a farm that produced ethanol fuel from sweet sorghum on an experimental basis in the early 1980s. Before coming to Dordt College, he designed and analyzed biomass gasification and combustion units as a research and development engineer for Pioneer Hi-Bred International.
Dordt engineering students involved in this project will explore a variety of system designs and attempt to create a small-scale field-to-fuel process that would be feasible for small scale producers to incorporate into their farm operations.
Brue says that the challenge of the proposed small-scale system design is to minimize capital cost and reduce technical complexity, so the system could be maintained and operated by individual farmers or used cooperatively by a small group of producers.
''This project will result in a working crop-to-fuel process that will demonstrate operation and illustrate challenges relating to small-scale ethanol production,'' he said. ''We hope it will offer information to regional producers about the advantages and opportunities of small-scale systems.''
Dordt's engineering students will be involved in the project, providing training for future leaders in bio-renewable technology development.
''Ultimately, it is the farmer who would benefit from the success of this project,'' Brue said. ''Enabling farmers to move from producing subsidized commodities to marketing a value-added product would aid in strengthening the economic potential of agricultural communities in Iowa.''
The sweet sorghum for the project will be raised at the 160-acre Agricultural Stewardship Center, a farm operated by Dordt for the purpose of ag related research and education. Numerous varieties of sorghum will be evaluated for their suitability for Northwest Iowa growing conditions. Sugar and ethanol yields will be studied under a variety of planting and harvesting scenarios.
The results of this project will be demonstrated to farmers and the general public at Dordt's 2008 fall field days. In addition, public design presentations will be made prior to this field day in the spring of 2008.
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