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| Ethanol plant |
The two main processes to produce ethanol from corn are wet milling and dry milling.
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| Foxboro transmitter |
Wet milling is more versatile as it produces a greater variety of products, including starch, corn syrup, and sucralose (such as Splenda®). However, with this versatility come higher costs in mill design, building, and operation. If ethanol is the primary product produced, dry mills offer the advantages of lower construction and operations costs, with improved production efficiency. Of the more than 70 U.S. ethanol plants currently being built, only a few are wet mills.
The efficiency of ethanol production has come a long way during the last 20 years. As more large-scale facilities come on line, ethanol producers are faced with the growing challenge of finding innovative ways to maintain profitability while this market matures. An increasingly accepted solution is process automation to assist ethanol producers in controlling product quality, output, and costs. Because sensing and analytical instrumentation represents what is essentially the eyes and ears of any automation system, careful evaluation of instrumentation, at the design phase can reduce both equipment and operating costs significantly, while improving overall manufacturing effectiveness.
The following document, courtesy of Foxboro, provides a good overview of instrumentation and the production of ethanol.
