Web exclusive posted March 9, 2009, at 11:08 a.m. CST

To assist agricultural engineers with developing transfer and storage mechanisms for distillers dried grains with solubles, the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers has initiated a project to develop an American National Standards Institute (ANSI) standard entitled "Properties and Relationships for Distillers Dried Grains with Solubles (DDGS)."

According to ASABE, the proposed standard will summarize the current state of knowledge regarding the physical and chemical properties for DDGS.

"There really aren't documents you can go to when you're designing facilities and augers and whatnot for that material," said Scott Cedarquist, spokesman for ASABE. "It was felt that it would be helpful to produce something like that. It is something agricultural engineers are quite a bit involved in."

The standards are needed to design biorefinery facilities, structures, and unit processing operations, including transfer and storage mechanisms such as augers and bins, Cedarquist said. The standards will also be helpful for livestock producers and for developing applications to produce materials from the coproduct.

Cedarquist said ASABE's Physical Properties of Agricultural Products committee will develop the standard. He said no timeline has been established for completing the standard because the work required to complete the standard depends on the comments received and any additional research that might need to be completed. Cedarquist said the standard would address the range of properties that the variable coproduct might exhibit.