Energy supply for our time
The development of renewable energy sources such as ethanol, biodiesel and biogas is of great importance in securing future energy supplies, to decreasing oil dependency and environmental impact and to strengthening rural economies.
Alfa Laval has a well-established position in the biofuels area and supplies a comprehensive range of equipment for the production of both ethanol and biodiesel. Optimized use of energy and recovery of by-products are important criteria for cost-efficient production of biofuels and Alfa Laval’s heat exchangers with excellent heat recovery as well as its efficient separation technology are widely used in this area.
Alfa Laval offers solutions for most processes in the distilling industry including the production of fuel ethanol.
The solutions comprise:
- compact condensers and evaporators
- column reboilers
- mash heaters and fermenter coolers
- stillage decanters
- yeast separators
Reboilers and condensers are needed at either end of the distillation columns, and decanters and evaporators are used to process the stillage into an animal feed – distillers’ dried grains - which is the valuable by-product. Separators are used to recycle the yeast, which would otherwise be wasted.
Biodiesel is a renewable fuel that is rapidly gaining ground. It is a renewable fuel derived from vegetable oils or animal fats. Alfa Laval supplies heating, separation and mixing technologies adapted for the different biodiesel production steps.
The pre-treatment process removes impurities from the vegetable oil feedstock. Our high- speed separators, mixers and heat exchangers are used in this stage.
In the transesterification phase, the heart of the biodiesel process, our separators provide efficient separation of glycerine from biodiesel. We also supply heat transfer and mixing equipment for this process.
In the washing and drying phase Alfa Laval's heat exchangers offer space-saving solutions for evaporating methanol and/or water. Our high-speed separators ensure efficient water removal and decanter centrifuges for dewatering are able to handle high solid concentrates.
Project engineering
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Complete Ethanol projects Alfa Laval supplies complete projects for ethanol production. The scope of supply includes design, engineering, commissioning and execution of entire project. Alfa Laval has the expertise in handling different raw matrerials like molasses, sugar cane juice, cassava, starchy substrates etc. The end product can also be as varied as industrial alcohol, rectified spirit, potable alcohol and fuel grade alcohol.
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Spent wash evaporation system Alfa Laval extends its expertise to handle the spent wash - the messy and foul effluent coming from distilleries - by supplying spent wash evaporation sytems.