BioFuels Journal

ICM, Inc. Introduces New Technology For Ethanol Plants to Produce Both Food and Fuel

Colwich, KS—ICM, Inc. announced June 16 that ethanol biorefineries investing in the company's new, proprietary and innovative technology before the end of this year, will be capable of commercially producing both food and fuel in 2010.

The announcement was made during ICM’s customer meeting at the annual Fuel Ethanol Workshop (FEW) in Nashville, TN.

“We are talking about the ‘ethanol biorefinery of the future’…and very near future at that,” said Dave Vander Griend, founder, president and CEO.

“Fifty years ago, the U.S. fed the world. We will be able to do that again with a food supply brought about by the evolution of ethanol production.”

Since the company’s founding, ICM’s mission has been to sustain agriculture through innovation.

Recently, the company’s mission expanded to researching ways to deliver much-needed protein to the world, by way of ethanol processing.

At the same time, the corn-to-ethanol industry is maturing, and a changing economic outlook is prompting existing biorefineries to explore means of maintaining financial success in challenging tightethanol, high-corn price markets.

ICM recognized this changing outlook and is delivering on its mission by developing technology to create "new renewables" that can be built upon the existing ethanol biorefinery – the key facilitator of the new technology is a process called dry fractionation.

Vander Griend says dry fractionation, the first component of ICM’s new six-part Food AND FuelTM technology package, can be installed as early as the fourth quarter of this year, with production coming on line in the second quarter of 2009.

After cleaning and moisture conditioning, the proprietary dry fractionation process mechanically separates the corn kernel into its three main components: endosperm (the starchy portion comprising most of the inner kernel), germ (the protein- and oil-rich center), and bran (the kernel’s fibrous outer layer).

More than just producing ethanol, optimizing the whole kernel in this way allows for the production of a host of food-grade and feedgrade co-products, as well as another alternate fuel source to power the process.

In addition to new food-processing capabilities, ICM’s new technology offering also provides several other advantages for biorefineries:

• A guaranteed increase in ethanol production capacity.

• Reduced natural gas consumption.

• Decreased enzyme usage.

• A platform for emerging technologies.

• A bridge to cellulosic ethanol.

ICM installed their first Food AND FuelTM technology package at a biorefinery in St. Joseph, MO.

This facility, LifeLine Foods, is the proving ground for ICM’s “ethanol biorefinery of the future” package, which includes the technology to transform corn fiber to cellulosic ethanol.

“Our situation is a little different than that of the typical ICM customer because we were a food processor first,” says Mike Sobetski, vice president and COO, LifeLine Foods.

“Prior to partnering with ICM, more than 70 percent of our revenue came from food production. Coproducts such as livestock feed and germ accounted for the remaining nearly 30 percent.

"Today, two-thirds of our revenue is generated by ethanol and its co-products, and higherquality food products comprise the remaining one-third.

"Even with this shift, we are generating more revenue from the-now-30-percent food production than we were with 70 percent because of the increased capacities and the synergies of the new processes brought to us by ICM.”

Based on the implementation and output happening at LifeLine, ICM has created a preliminary economic model to outline the adoption of the new six-part Food AND FuelTM technology package.

By opening new markets for various co-products, there is the potential for $1 billion in additional revenue over 10 years.

“We have always believed that ethanol is part of the solution to our economic, energy and environmental issues and this is what we are doing to make ethanol better. We can now make food during the ethanol process, we can process ethanol in an efficient and more environmentally-friendly way, and we can help retain more of our energy dollars in the U.S. while creating new markets for diversified global agriculture” said Vander Griend.

For more information, call 316-796-0900.