Meeting a briquetting challenge
An ethanol producer works with a test center to design a biomass briquetting process.
Chippewa Valley Ethanol Co. LLLP (CVEC), Benson, Minn., processes locally grown corn into more than 48 million gallons of ethanol annually for use as a gasoline additive. In 2007, the company invested in a 280-ton-per-day fluid-bed gasifier that burns waste wood; corn cobs, leaves, and stalks; and other biomass to offset up to 90 percent of the ethanol production process’s natural gas consumption. After starting up the gasifier, the company experienced problems handling and disposing of the gasification by-product, called biochar.