Meeting Abstract
S-43a
Enzymatic processing of corn for food, feed, and fuel. D. B. Johnston (1). (1) USDA ARS, Wyndmoore, PA.
Although the use of enzymes in grain processing is not a recent development, new processing strategies are demonstrating the potential to change the current industry standards. Enzymatic corn wet milling or E-Milling, is one of these processes. E-Milling reduces and potentially eliminates the sulfur dioxide requirements of conventional corn wet milling. This process utilizes a protease to significantly reduce processing time, produces higher starch yields compared to the conventional wet milling process and could potentially be developed into an “Organic Certified” process. Using a similar strategy, an enzyme based dry grind process (fermentation process of whole corn kernels) for ethanol production has also been developed. The modified dry grind process allows co-products (germ for oil extraction and pericarp for gum or animal feed applications) to be recovered prior to fermentation. Removal of co-products prior to fermentation has many advantages over the existing dry grind process, including increases in fermentation capacity and compositional improvements for Distillers Dried Grains with Solubles (DDGS). The modified dry grind process (at the laboratory scale) has consistently shown improved fermentation rates and final co-product compositions. Other applications of enzymes are currently being investigated in our laboratory, particularly for use in the dry grind ethanol process. Results from the enzyme based processes will be presented, ranging from laboratory scale to pilot and plant scale trials. Process engineering and cost models for each process will also be shown and will include an overview of the economic outlook for each process.