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A Case Study of East Kansas Agri-Energy

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Application of Advanced Process Control to an Ethanol Dry Mill Process: East Kansas Agri-Energy

East Kansas Agri-Energy (EKAE) is one of seven ethanol production plants in the state of Kansas as of 2007. Located at the end of the Corn Belt in Garnett, Kansas, EKAE has been producing ethanol from corn since June 2005 using a dry mill process, where the starch portion of the corn is fermented into sugar and then distilled into alcohol. In addition to ethanol, EKAE produces distiller grains, a high value product of the dry mill process.

EKAE produces approximately 35 million gallons of 200 proof ethanol, 68,000 tons of dried distiller’s grains with solubles (DDGS) and 110,000 tons of wet distiller’s grains with solubles (WDGS). The production process consists of six steps: grinding, cooking, fermentation, distillation, dehydration and non-fermentables.

After a detailed evaluation of many options for capital expenditure, EKAE engaged Pavilion Technologies, a division of Rockwell Automation to provide an advanced process control (APC) solution. The APC solution focused on the milling, cooking and stillage dehydration sections of the plant (Table 1). EKAE set the following main objectives for the APC project:

• Increase dryer capacity by 4-6%
• Reduce Energy utilization (MMBTU Gas/gal EtOH) by 2.5-3 %
• Increase ethanol production through more stable plant control
  

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