developed our own pretreatment solu-tion” says Wortzman. The company has applied for a pat-ent, which revealed the extruder tech-nology to be “very unique,” according to Wortzman. The technology also has other industrial applications as a soid-liquid separation device for dewatering, squeezing plant oils and separating trace oils using solvents, to name a few. The extruder’s multi-function ca-pability of washing and solid-liquid separation, as the biomass travels its length, is made possible by its specially designed and fabricated filter blocks. In the pretreatment process, extruder No. 1 conditions the incoming biomass by removing resins and toxins. Extruder No. 2 then completes the process by washing the cellulose and hemicellu-lose fractions, squeezing and separat-ing the hemicellulose fraction from the cellulose fraction and contributing to the pretreatment cooking of the biomass to make the cellulose fraction more digestible. According to Wortzman, Green-Field’s modified extruder requires fewer pieces of equipment compared to other commercial off-the-shelf equipment, helping to reduce capital costs and low-ering operating costs by using less en-ergy and lower enzyme and yeast loads. biOgas anD tOmatOes While ethanol remains GreenField’s principal product, the company is look-ing for economic contributions from more than just DDGS. “Now in the industry there has been an effort made to become biorefineries and to be better in terms of the co-products that you are able to generate out of that kernel of corn,” says Wortzman. The company’s Chatham plant is do-ing just that – changing from an ethanol plant into a biorefinery – with the recent announcement of a project that will see a greenhouse operation use the facility’s CO 2 to grow tomatoes. “It’s literally us delivering CO 2 across the fence, which they will use as the food to feed their tomatoes,” says Wortzman. “That’s a biorefinery – where nothing gets wasted. You’re not venting anything into the atmosphere; you’re using your CO 2 for another application.” The Chatham plant is also develop-ing new co-products from the manu-facture of ethanol. “We’ve incorporated equipment that allow us to remove the corn oil after fermentation and to either ourselves make a biodiesel or sell to bio-diesel manufacturers,” says Wortzman. “Many plants in North America are now incorporating that technology be-cause it’s another opportunity to gener-ate a co-product revenue stream out of a single kernel of corn – nothing gets wasted.” At GreenField’s Varennes facility in Quebec, the company is also develop-ing an anaerobic digester on-site that will use organic waste from local South Shore communities to produce bio-gas that will displace a portion of the plant’s natural gas use, as well as part-nering with Enerkem to incroporate its thermochemcial technology to produce cellulosic ethanol from municipal and indsutrial waste. • BBI International biomass janfeb13.indd 1 Canadian BIOMASS 13-02-04 2:18 PM 17
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