Breakout Session IV
Energy Efficiencies in BioProcessing Plants
Doug Litwiller
Doug Litwiller, P.E. CEM, is a Project Manager and Certified Energy Manager with Interstate Power and Light (IPL) – Alliant Energy (Ames, IA office). He is leading an IPL team that consults with proposed and existing ethanol plants and biodiesel plants. The focus of this effort is to help these facilities identify and implement process improvements and modifications to reduce overall energy cost, including energy efficiency improvements and applications of biomass to energy conversion processes. IPL is a co-owner of a patent “Methods For Generating Energy Using Agricultural Biofuel". This IPL team is also involved with helping educate clients on the application of other biorenewable technologies and to assist them in developing these projects.
Jerod Smeenk
Jerod Smeenk is co-founder and engineering manager at Frontline BioEnergy, LLC. He has over 12 years experience in project management, as well as research and design of thermochemical conversion systems for biomass (in both gasification, combustion, and pyrolysis). Mr. Smeenk has designed, built, and operated numerous biomass conversion systems including a fluid bed gasifier for Pioneer Hi-Bred International, several pilot gasifiers owned by Iowa State University, and several other gasifiers built by various organizations. Mr. Smeenk has been active in biomass research, development, demonstration, and commercialization of solid fuel gasification and gas cleaning systems throughout the past decade. Before Frontline BioEnergy, Mr. Smeenk was most recently the President of Carbon Energy Technology, Inc., an engineering consulting firm that provided design and consulting services for companies looking to utilize biomass energy. He also worked at Iowa State University’s Center for Sustainable Environmental Technologies as a project engineer developing thermochemical conversion technology and is a graduate of Iowa State University.
Scott Kohl
Scott Kohl, ICM’s Technical Director, works with a team of more than a dozen scientists and researchers driven to increase value for ICM’s customers by developing creative ways to make ethanol production more efficient and cost-effective. In fact, Dr. Kohl and the rest of ICM’s research and development team lead the industry in developing revolutionary new equipment and process technologies while working from a state-of-the-art research facility in the company’s Colwich, KS, headquarters.
Kohl’s life-long affiliation with agriculture began on the rural South Dakota farm where he grew up. After earning his PhD in chemistry from South Dakota State University in Brookings, SD, Kohl stayed on at his alma mater as a researcher and professor. He began his career in the ethanol industry as the lab manager for Glacial Lakes Energy in Watertown, SD.
Kohl pulled up his South Dakota roots and moved his family to Wichita in 2003 when he joined the ICM team. In his initial role as principal scientist, Kohl’s main focus was plant optimization, primarily in the fermentation area. Thanks in part to his efforts, ICM plants are the industry’s most efficient ethanol plants, using approximately 25% less pipe and 10% less energy while experiencing 5% less downtime than other plants. Kohl currently directs research in starch-based crops and investigates the sugar and thermal platforms in cellulosic ethanol production.
Kent Rausch
Kent Rausch, is an associate professor of agricultural and biological engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, specializing in bioprocess engineering. His research interests include corn co-product processing, process stream characterization and membrane filtration. His current research is focusing on methods to increase the rate of water recycle during the corn to ethanol production process as well as determining factors that influence thin stillage evaporation efficiency. He also has studied nutrient flows and concentrations in the corn wet milling process.