Objective
To set up a distillery featuring integrated distillation and effluent treatment, and by automation to recover energy.
Heat consumption was some 10 % higer than forecast in the alcohol production plant and some 20 % higher in the combined plant.
These results are still good compared with the performance of conventional plants but are rather disappointing considering the forecasts for the project.
Technically, the project has been only partially successful therefore. Moreover, at the moment there is no chance of making alterations or improvements in order to obtain better results, and this for two reasons.
1.The alcohol production plant operates continuously distilling wine surpluses. A long shut-down in order to make alterations would result in serious financial loss which would be unjustified in view of the potential energy-saving benefits.
It should be remembered inter alia that, since the project was submitted, energy costs have decreased to a third and therefore there is no justifiaction for spending large sums of money to achieve marginal savings.
2. The combined plant is a small-scale operation and so results are not totally reliable, partly because the plant has been producing alcohol for drinking rather than ethanol.
Since the production and use of ethanol is still not allowed in Italy, there is no point in making alterations to the plant because it would not be possible to test the plant according to the terms of the project.
The plant is especially suitable for producing ethanol from cereal crops.
This production system allows substantial energy savings compared with conventional systems since the two processes - distillation of the alcolhol and evaporation of the still wash - are carried out in separate plants.
The plant design is original and versatile in that it has four distillation columns and two evaporation tanks.
Since there were no regulations in Italy on the use of ethanol when the plant was being built, it was decided to make the alcohol production part a full-scale operation (1 000 hectolitres of absolute alcolhol a day) and to have only a small-scale plant (120 hectolitres of absolute alcohol a day) for the combined distillation and evaporation part.
Topic(s)
Call for proposal
Data not availableFunding Scheme
DEM - Demonstration contractsCoordinator
48018 Faenza
Italy