Product and by-product optimization in processing agricultural products: A case for barley to ethanol

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Rolando A. Flores, rflores2@unlnotes.unl.edu, Food Science and Technology Department, University of Nebraska- Lincoln, 143 Filley Hall, Lincoln, NE 68588-0919
Ethanol production from corn has three major products: ethanol, carbon dioxide and dried distillers of grain and solubles (DDGS). The current expansion of the ethanol industry from corn has gone long ways in looking at the processing of the liquefaction, saccharification, fermentation, distillation of corn and the dehydration of DDGS. Nonetheless, the accumulation of all the solid and liquid byproducts into the DGGS is very inefficient and deserves more study to optimize a fundamental part of the ethanol process. Using barley to ethanol as an example, dry fractionation was used to segregate valuable components from the barley kernel and leave a scarified kernel high in starch and low in lipids and fiber.