Water issues can show up everywhere in an ethanol plant. From the beginning, source water volumes need to be considered, as impurities can require mechanical or chemical pretreatment for fluoride or iron. Inefficient or improperly maintained infrastructure such as cooling towers or boilers can increase the volume or purity requirements for production and efficiency. Dehydration and wastewater systems can also impact total volumes used or treated, including the energy bill required to make either process work.&nbsp;In the push to reduce carbon intensity (CI) scores, water can present significant challenges. But as several plants, technology providers, engineers and researchers are illustrating, focusing on H20 can create opportunities &nbsp;to lower CI and improve efficiencies from end to end via reduced volumes and higher performance from water-linked infrastructure.Cooling Towers, Boilers&nbsp;&nbsp; Helping ethanol producers minimize water use, water discharge and fuel consumption is what ChemTreat, a provider of water and process treatment solutions, does best.“It is really our bread and butter,” says Patrick Shultz, corporate director of biofuels for ChemTreat. “For over 50 years, this has been our company’s area of focus. We work with our ethanol customers to increase their efficiency, protect their assets and conserve resources.”&nbsp;ChemTreat deals primarily in boilers and cooling towers. It also works with producers to optimize cleaning processes and evaporator scale control. In 2023, the company released a case study documenting solutions it provided for an ethanol plant struggling with boiler feedwater and condensate corrosion issues. The plant’s approach to its boiler was based on a standard three-component program, consisting of three chemical containments to manage, along with three pumps and three products to test for.&nbsp;ChemTreat simplified the process by recommending an update with a single product containing polymer to inhibit scaling, a neutralizing amine to reduce the potential for carbonic acid attacks and a filming amine to create a protective barrier over the entire feedwater and condensate system.&nbsp;The company also offers its trademarked FlexPro, which dramatically reduces corrosion, according to Shultz.“We have found that in the past, cooling water corrosion rates had often been treated as an afterthought in the ethanol industry, but that is changing,” Schultz says. “As plants begin to age, minimizing corrosion rates becomes very crucial.”&nbsp;In addition to the FlexPro offering, ChemTreat has also created a line of broad-spectrum cleaning products to deter mineral scale and organic foulants found in front-end fermentation and evaporators. Because evaporators require pure water, any impurities present in the towers have to be flushed out.Schultz says the experience level of ChemTreat’s on-site account managers is what really separates them from the competition. “Our account managers have a thorough understanding of the water at each of our customers’ sites, allowing them to identify each customer’s unique limiting factors.”&nbsp;Schultz points out that most of the account managers at ChemTreat have more than 10 years of experience in the industry. It seems that ChemTreat’s unique approach has been very well received by the ethanol industry. “In just the past four years, we have more than tripled the number of ethanol customers that we service,” Schultz says.Kurita America, another water specialist that serves the ethanol sector, offers a checklist of questions that producers can review if they believe their cooling towers are an issue for performance or overall high water consumption:• Can the circulation rate of the cooling system be increased?&nbsp;• Does the fill need to be replaced?&nbsp;• What are the flow rates through the plant exchangers?&nbsp;• What are the temperature profiles showing versus what they should be?&nbsp;• If modifications are made to the Btu output in one area to maximize efficiency, how does that affect cooling tower operations?&nbsp;Upstream Solutions&nbsp; Some technology providers, engineers and plant managers look upstream first to turn water issues into opportunities.&nbsp;Watertech of America, a Wisconsin-based water expert and solutions provider, took an upstream approach to help a 50 MMgy ethanol plant deal with issues in its cooling tower. The company focused on the high levels of iron in the well water, fouling both the cooling tower and the fermentation heat exchangers. The location of the cooling tower presented a challenge as it was exposed to high dust and heat.&nbsp;At one point, the iron removal filters were malfunctioning and showing higher iron levels than the untreated well water did prior to filtration.&nbsp;To fix the issue, Watertech put together a plan that rebuilt two systems, including under-drain systems, while also adding custom-engineered media and controls. The resulting work increased production at the plant by roughly 15,000 gallons per day, lowered maintenance on chillers and CO2 production and reduced the need for biocides. Watertech says the plant saved up to $50,000 annually.&nbsp;In Iowa, Synder &amp; Associates transformed Elite Octane’s cooling water resources, drawing 1.2 million gallons of water per day from municipal wastewater instead of community wells. The project required the city of Atlantic, Iowa, to install three 72 horsepower submersible pumps in its effluent tanks and 4,300 feet of 12-inch main pipe through a right-of-way easement connecting the plant to the city. According to Synder, Elite Octane is covering the cost of pumping and transferring the treated effluent. As a result of the project, the discharge water from the plant exits cleaner than it otherwise would have, and the amount of wastewater the city discharges into the East Nishnabotna River is reduced.“This project blazes the trail for future ethanol production facilities to use treated wastewater effluent as a substitute for freshwater sources,” Synder said in a statement.&nbsp;Tharaldson Ethanol of North Dakota also works with its local city on water supply. Between 2008 and 2016, the city of Fargo says it supplied Tharaldson Ethanol with just over 2.57 billion gallons of water that would have otherwise been discharged after treatment into the Red River of the North. Prior to reaching the river, a portion of the city’s treated wastewater is diverted to an advanced water treatment facility that then provides high-quality water to the Tharaldson plant.&nbsp;For improved cleaning solutions, Arkansas-based Water Tech Inc. offers a specialized, portable CIP skid that minimizes the need for more labor-intensive manual cleaning, while providing a convenient solution that makes effective cleaning processes repeatable, the company says. The CIP skid can utilize a number of different products offered by the company, including anti-foam chemistries and deposit control chemistry.The Big Picture&nbsp; Bruce Dvorak, University Nebraska-Lincoln professor of civil and environmental engineering, has been studying ways for ethanol plants to reduce water and energy consumption during ethanol production since 2022. Dvorak and his team are almost ready to divulge their data and findings after two years of intense work. The majority of the research, he says, has focused on the volume of water truly needed by a plant. Some areas that require water may not be running at the right capacity, causing excess water to go to waste in other processes. CO2 scrubbers also require a high volume of water.&nbsp;Dvorak and his research team acquired sampling equipment to monitor air emissions from CO2 scrubbers in an effort to study how much water might or might not be needed to achieve the right level of performance from the scrubbers.&nbsp;While the research, once released, will shed light on water use in Nebraska ethanol plants, the work will also help researchers explore yet another opportunistic process to reduce water use.&nbsp;His team has been designing and testing a bioscrubber column that reduces water use by potentially eliminating the CO2 scrubber altogether. The intricate system involves flowing water infused with CO2 over a microbe-rich solution that helps diffuse hazardous air pollutants, or HAPs. The microbes are fed via CO2, the same CO2 that would otherwise be treated in the scrubbers.&nbsp;Entities like the City of Chicago Municipal Wastewater utility use the same process to remove odors from water streams.&nbsp;“We think this process could be good for ethanol production,” Dvorak says. “Any process that helps improve water usage at a plant is a good thing.” &nbsp;Author: Luke Geiver&nbsp; <a href="mailto:writer@bbiinternational.com">writer@bbiinternational.com</a>SIDEBAR Recognize the Resource Another University of Nebraska-Lincoln researcher helps to provide a big-picture view of water and ethanol. Richard Perrin, a Jim Roberts professor of agricultural economics, focuses on three areas of research: productivity in agriculture; how biofuels affect agriculture and the environment; and the Ogallala Aquifer’s potential to feed the world.The Ogallala Aquifer is part of the High Plains Aquifer, an underground body of water that serves as a main water source for several Central Plains states including those that produce ethanol like Nebraska, Texas, Oklahoma or Kansas.According to Perrin, the aquifer in Nebraska is relatively stable, except in the southwest part of the state. South of Nebraska, he says, saturated thickness is less and it appears that current rates of water extraction from the Ogallala are not sustainable. Water efficiency and wastewater use could help reduce the amount of water drawn from the aquifer.

2025-05-30 - H2Opportunity In Every Drop (Ethanol Producer Magazine)

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