. Earth Science News .
Ultrasonics Boosts Release Rates Of Corn Sugars For Ethanol Production

illustration only
by Staff Writers
Ames IO (SPX) Jun 05, 2006
David Grewell flipped a switch and one of the ultrasonic machines in his Iowa State University laboratory pumped out high-frequency sound waves. Those 20 kilohertz waves were too high for human hearing. But put the machine's circular, metal horn in a bucket of water and the sound waves get the liquid bubbling with a loud hiss.

Then put a sheet of aluminum foil in the bucket and watch the power of cavitation - the formation and collapse of bubbles - as it marks the metal with tiny dimples and starts to tear it apart.

If a few seconds of ultrasonic treatment can do that to metal, think what ultrasonics can do to corn kernels, said Grewell, an Iowa State assistant professor of agricultural and biosystems engineering.

It turns out ultrasonics can do a lot to the corn slurry that's used to produce ethanol.

Samir Khanal, an Iowa State research assistant professor of environmental engineering, said the conventional dry-milling process that's used to make ethanol doesn't convert all the starch in corn kernels into the simple sugars that can be fermented into ethanol.

A team of Iowa State researchers has demonstrated that pre-treating milled corn with ultrasonics can break the corn pieces into even finer particles. That exposes more of the corn's starch to the enzymes that convert starch to simple sugars. The research team also plans to see if ultrasonics releases some sugars from the fibrous, cellulosic material in corn.

Grewell said ultrasonic treatment in laboratory experiments has increased corn's release rates of sugars by nearly 30 percent. And that could mean each bushel of corn that goes into an ethanol plant could more efficiently produce ethanol for your car's fuel tank.

"This seems to work very well," Grewell said. "We're releasing more of the corn's stored energy in a shorter period of time with less energy consumption."

The discovery has led to a patent application and a one-year provisional patent for immediate commercialization of the technology.

Grewell is directing the research project. Khanal and Hans van Leeuwen, an Iowa State professor of environmental engineering, are also working on the project.

Their research is supported by an $80,519 grant from Iowa State's share of the Grow Iowa Values Fund, the state's economic development fund.

Grewell said the researchers' next step will be to quantify the amount of ethanol produced when corn slurry is treated with ultrasonics. Then the process will be tested at a larger, pilot scale.

Ultrasonics has been used by various industries to join plastics, weld metals, clean surfaces and process liquids. Grewell, in fact, worked for 12 years in research and development for the Branson Ultrasonics Corp. of Danbury, Conn. He said he worked on a variety of ultrasonic applications, everything from freezing strawberries to processing rice.

And now the research goal is to produce more ethanol from corn.

"I think this is the right project at this point in time," Khanal said. "It may reduce the cost of ethanol production and ethanol production may become more efficient."

Related Links
Iowa State University

New US fuel standards give hope to diesel industry
Washington (AFP) Jun 4, 2006
New US standards for diesel fuel that went into effect June 1 are expected to open the door for auto manufacturers to introduce more diesel-powered cars to the US market, industry analysts say.







  • Sinking Levees
  • Future Hurricane Disasters May Become More Costly
  • Indonesia to make community grants for quake reconstruction
  • Tough start for Indonesia's quake babies

  • Climate change could fuel fiercer hurricane cycles: researchers
  • Climate change: Arctic went from greenhouse to icehouse
  • Sea-Surface Warming Linked to Worse Tropical Storms Activity
  • Cutting Energy Waste Crucial To Forestalling Climate Change

  • Ancient City Reveals Life In Desert 2,200 Years Ago
  • Commercial Remote Sensing Satellite Market Stabilizing
  • Digital Globe and Getty Images To Supply Satellite Images To News Media
  • Intermap Technologies Receives Radar Mapping Contract

  • Turning Corn Fiber Into Ethanol
  • China looks to harness wind power
  • New US fuel standards give hope to diesel industry
  • Ultrasonics Boosts Release Rates Of Corn Sugars For Ethanol Production

  • UN Reports AIDS Progress, But
  • Deaths Mount In Indonesia
  • Malaria, Potato Famine Pathogen Share Surprising Trait
  • Microbe Labs Proposed For California

  • Fourth Slovenian bear released in Pyrenees
  • Electric Fish May Be A Species Diverging
  • Hebrew University Researchers Uncover Eight Previously Unknown Species
  • It Takes Energy To Make A Species

  • Air pollution rife in India's villages: report
  • Pollution turning China's Yangtze river "cancerous"
  • 'Mercury Sponge' Technology Goes From Lab To Market
  • Managing Indian E-Waste

  • Does Hepatitis B Affect Human Gender Ratios
  • Ancient Etruscans Unlikely Ancestors Of Modern Tuscans
  • MIT Poet Develops 'Seeing Machine'
  • Robotic Joystick Reveals How Brain Controls Movement

  • The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2006 - SpaceDaily.AFP and UPI Wire Stories are copyright Agence France-Presse and United Press International. ESA PortalReports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additionalcopyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement,agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by SpaceDaily on any Web page published or hosted by SpaceDaily. Privacy Statement