Combined Heat and Power in Automobiles: Utilization of Waste Engine Heat to Drive Ethanol/Water Distillation

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dc.contributor.advisorFrey, Douglas
dc.contributor.advisorRudesill, John A
dc.contributor.authorD'Alessio, Benjamin
dc.contributor.departmentChemical, Biochemical & Environmental Engineering
dc.contributor.programEngineering, Chemical and Biochemical
dc.date.accessioned2015-10-14T03:14:15Z
dc.date.available2015-10-14T03:14:15Z
dc.date.issued2011-01-01
dc.description.abstractThe production of ethanol from corn is currently an energy intensive process and provides a marginal energy investment return. The final steps of ethanol purification involve distillation and dehydration, together consuming the most energy in the ethanol production process. The most practical way to reduce this energy requirement is to reduce the distillation requirement at the manufacturing level. This can be realized by the use of combined heat and power technology, in which ethanol is used as the primary fuel in an engine and provides energy to do both mechanical work and heat energy to drive the distillation of an aqueous ethanol mixture. The net energy value is the energy released from combustion divided by the energy required to create the fuel. Given a startup amount of ethanol is present, it is possible to raise the net energy value of ethanol from 1.08 to 3.78 if distillation at the manufacturing level ceases at 50% v/v purity. The goal of this study was to investigate the feasibility of a system described as such by build a functioning proof of concept. In doing so, waste exhaust heat from a small Honda generator set was successfully captured to drive an ethanol/water distillation column capable of producing ethanol at 90% v/v purity. Further development is pending on resolving scale-up issues and running the generator set on 90% v/v ethanol to fully close the loop and realize the full potential of the combined heat and power system.
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dc.genretheses
dc.identifierdoi:10.13016/M2XD4P
dc.identifier.other10602
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/11603/1090
dc.languageen
dc.relation.isAvailableAtThe University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC)
dc.relation.ispartofUMBC Theses and Dissertations Collection
dc.relation.ispartofUMBC Graduate School Collection
dc.relation.ispartofUMBC Student Collection
dc.relation.ispartofUMBC Chemical, Biochemical & Environmental Engineering Department Collection
dc.rightsThis item may be protected under Title 17 of the U.S. Copyright Law. It is made available by UMBC for non-commercial research and education. For permission to publish or reproduce, please see http://aok.lib.umbc.edu/specoll/repro.php or contact Special Collections at speccoll(at)umbc.edu.
dc.sourceOriginal File Name: DAlessio_umbc_0434M_10602.pdf
dc.subjectCHP
dc.subjectCombined heat and power
dc.subjectcorn ethanol production
dc.subjectethanol distillation
dc.subjectethanol energy balance
dc.titleCombined Heat and Power in Automobiles: Utilization of Waste Engine Heat to Drive Ethanol/Water Distillation
dc.typeText
dcterms.accessRightsAccess limited to the UMBC community. Item may possibly be obtained via Interlibrary Loan through a local library, pending author/copyright holder's permission.

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