ISU researchers evaluate corn oil, distillers grains economics

September 2, 2011

BY Kris Bevill

Compared to a few years ago, the number of projects focused on distillers grains may have noticeably dropped at many universities, but at Iowa State University, scientists continue to forge ahead with important research on the most abundant ethanol coproduct. Kurt Rosentrater served for seven years as an agricultural engineer at the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service lab in Brookings, S.D., but recently left to join with other faculty at ISU to focus more intently on distillers grains, their value-added uses, and the role distillers grains plays in the overall sustainability of ethanol production. The sustainability factor is especially interesting to Rosentrater, who believes distillers grains are much more than the coproduct they’ve traditionally been labeled as.

“By the very nature of the business, without distillers grains it’s not sustainable,” Rosentrater said. “But by addressing the issue of how you improve distillers grains, how the distillers is used, transported and produced, that is going to improve the sustainability of the system. But that’s only one part of it. The system is much bigger than just the distillers grains. This new position will allow me to address some of these bigger questions.”

Rosentrater began his position as assistant professor at ISU’s agricultural and biosystems engineering department on Aug. 15. His work this summer has been focused mostly on economic concerns, specifically the impact of oil extraction and the production of wet distillers grains versus dried. “There’s a lot of interesting questions,” he said. “What makes the most sense for a typical ethanol plant to be doing right now considering the current economic conditions?” The research is not quite ready for release, but early findings show that oil extraction using centrifuges makes a significant impact on the profitability of ethanol plants and doesn’t necessarily affect the quality of the distillers grains, he said. “Every plant produces a slightly different type of distillers grain, whether you’re centrifuging or not,” he said. “Some plants are doing a really good job of producing high-quality, lower-oil distillers and some plants are doing not quite as good a job. It’s really plant dependent.” In terms of wet versus dried distillers grains, natural gas costs, of course, play a deciding factor in the economics of the operation.

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Other projects Rosentrater and other ISU scientists are working on take a longer-term view toward distillers grains. Prices have been good for the product this year, so many producers may not see the need to diversify, but Rosentrater cautions that the current scenario is likely to change so it’s important to evaluate other uses for distillers grains, including converting the fiber portion to cellulosic ethanol. “Because of the economic climate now, lots of people may say ‘why bother?’ But we need to take a longer view,” he said.

Rosentrater expects a series of papers announcing the results of his group’s research projects to be released in the coming year.

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