Processing biomass

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9677039-B2
Application number	US-201414221386-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Mar 21, 2014
Priority date	May 20, 2009
Publication date	Jun 13, 2017
Grant date	Jun 13, 2017

Abstract

Biomass feedstocks (e.g., plant biomass, animal biomass, and municipal waste biomass) are processed to produce useful products, such as fuels. For example, systems are described that can convert feedstock materials to a sugar solution, which can then be fermented to produce ethanol. Biomass feedstock is saccharified in a vessel by operation of a jet mixer, the vessel also containing a fluid medium and a saccharifying agent.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A system comprising:
a vessel having an arcuate bottom surface;
a delivery system for delivering a lignocellulosic feedstock and a liquid medium to the vessel; and
a jet mixer, disposed within the vessel, the jet mixer comprising a jet-flow agitator having an impeller mounted at the distal end of a shaft and a shroud surrounding the impeller, a longitudinal axis of the shaft of the jet flow agitator being offset laterally from a longitudinal axis of the vessel; and
a monitoring device configured to monitor the sugar concentration and/or ethanol concentration of the liquid in the vessel and coupled to a fermentation control module.

2. The system of claim 1 wherein the delivery system is configured to deliver a feedstock having a bulk density of less than about 0.5 g/cm 3 .

3. The system of claim 1 wherein the jet mixer comprises a plurality of jet-flow agitators, each jet-flow agitator being configured to operate reversibly, pumping fluid towards the top of the vessel in a first mode, and towards the bottom of the vessel in a second mode.

4. The system of claim 1 , wherein said monitoring a device is configured to monitor a glucose level of the liquid medium during operation of the jet mixer.

5. The system of claim 1 wherein the vessel comprises a tank.

6. The system of claim 5 wherein the tank has a volume of at least 4000 L.

7. The system of claim 6 wherein the tank has a volume of at least 40000 L.

8. The system of claim 5 wherein the jet mixer comprises a motor having a power of at least 10 hp.

9. The system of claim 8 wherein the motor has a power of at least 20 hp.

10. The system of claim 1 further comprising a saccharifying agent delivery device configured to deliver a metered amount of saccharifying agent to the tank.

11. The system of claim 8 wherein the motor is capable of operating at 500 to 20,000 RPM.

12. The system of claim 5 wherein the tank comprises a port for removing material from the tank.

13. The system of claim 1 wherein the jet mixer comprises a motor configured so that the torque of the motor is self-adjusting to maintain a relatively constant impeller speed.

14. The system of claim 1 wherein the jet mixer further comprises a motor, and the system further comprises a torque monitor that monitors torque of the motor during mixing, and/or an amp monitor that monitors a full load amperage of the motor.

15. The system of claim 14 further comprising a controller that adjusts the operation of the feedstock delivery device and/or of a saccharifying agent delivery device based on input from the torque monitor.

16. The system of claim 14 further comprising a heat monitoring system configured to monitor the temperature of the liquid medium and adjust a feed rate of the feedstock by the delivery system and/or the torque or full load amperage of the motor in response to increases in temperature.

Assignees

• Xyleco Inc

Inventors

• Medoff Marshall
• Masterman Thomas Craig

Classifications

• B01F7/00541

  Operations & Transport · mapped topic

• B01F5/0218

  Operations & Transport · mapped topic

• C12P19/00

  Preparation of compounds containing saccharide radicals (ketoaldonic acids C12P7/58) · CPC title

• B01F5/0212

  Operations & Transport · mapped topic

• C12M41/48

  Automatic or computerized control (automatic analysis G01N35/00) · CPC title