Whitefox to deliver industrial scale membrane system to Pacific Ethanol

UK based Whitefox has signed an agreement with US based Pacific Ethanol for delivering an industrial scale membrane system to cut down consumption of water, energy and emissions during ethanol production.

Under the agreement, the clean fuel membrane specialist will develop and deliver a stand-alone, container based, membrane system which the ethanol producer will be deploying at its Madera plant in California, US.

Whitefox CTO Dr Stephan Blum said: "Existing ethanol producers are dealing with a number of issues in the ethanol production process: One challenge is cooling water during hot and humid summer months when output capacity is sometimes reduced to maintain product specifications.

"Another challenge is the constant recycle of water-rich ethanol that consumes additional energy and prevents plants from operating at their full capacity potential.

"These challenges can be addressed with a membrane solution that give producers a more reliable and efficient operation".

The project is in line with the recent mandates for water consumption reduction in California which had been suffering from drought for nearly four years.

California has been pressing for bringing down the rates of water supply and emissions, which in its turn has been affecting the ethanol producers and the firms willing to export ethanol into California.

Whitefox is expected to deliver the membrane unit this month and to follow up with its commissioning in June.

The system will be used by Pacific Ethanol to measure the impact of treating certain side streams in the ethanol production process.

The firm also intends to optimise the design of a membrane solution in order to eliminate bottlenecks and better efficiency of the production process at the Madera facility.

Whitefox CEO Gillian Harrison said: "It is clear that Pacific Ethanol is investing in energy and water consumption reduction initiatives because it makes environmental sense, but also because it makes good business sense as it improves plant efficiencies.

"We are confident that Whitefox’s membrane solution will contribute to Pacific Ethanol’s ambitious targets and look forward to working together."