BioFuels Journal

Gulf Ethanol Reports Significant Improvements in Cellulosic Feedstock Preprocessor Performance

Houston, TX—Gulf Ethanol Corporation (PINKSHEETS: GFET) reported its initial lab tests October 6.

Gulf Ethanol has developed a cellulosic feed-stock pre-processor which it believes will be an important component in the future success of low cost cellulosic ethanol. Gulf has submitted samples of its product to Microbac Laboratories, a nationally recognized independent testing laboratory and has now received its initial results.

LAB RESULTS:

Particle Size

One of the core goals of pre-processing feed stocks is to reduce particle size.

Particle size implicates two important principles: a) smaller particles have more net surface area per unit of mass and, therefore, generally allow for the ethanol to be processed from the feed-stock more quickly;

b) smaller particles allow for continuous flow processing because the fine cellulose powder does not need batch processing to be efficient; and

c) smaller particles reduce transportation costs because the density per cubic foot is higher.

Initial lab results show particle sizes in the range of 10 microns (one one-thousandth of a centimeter) for both the powdered sorghum and powdered corn processed by Gulf Ethanol.

Chemical Characteristics

Pre-processed Sorghum analysis indicated significant improvement in the amount of water soluble sugars in the Gulf Ethanol product.

This would indicate that the preprocessing makes more sugars available for processing into ethanol.

Lab analysis indicated that Glucan, Starch and Xylan totaled 38.68% which, when combined with water soluble sugars came to 52.65%. Ash content was 15.1% with the sample having a lignin content of 30.2%.

Moisture

Reducing the moisture content of feed stocks has significant impact on the ability to store feed stocks after harvest, or put another way, the amount of extractable sugars that remain at the time of processing.

For example, the Department of Energy task force on Renewable Energy reports that feed stock stored for only seven days can lose as much as 10% of its available sugars.

Removing moisture during preprocessing eliminates this problem and reduces transportation costs because producers do not have to haul the water that would be removed by pre-processing.

The Gulf Ethanol samples showed insignificant moisture content.

For more information, call 713-461-9229.