Systems and methods for recovering carbon dioxide from industrially relevant waste streams, especially ethanol fermentation processes, for application in food and beverage production

Abstract

A system for recovering CO2 via liquefaction and purification from a vented CO2 gas stream comprising a compressor; a dehydrator; a scrubber; a refrigerator having one or more stages; and a separation subsystem adapted to ensure non-condensable gas content in the final product meets industry standards. The liquid CO2 product is of sufficient purity to be used in applications requiring beverage-grade CO2. The system can be utilized as a single-brewery installation to reduce venting from ethanol fermenters to an absolute minimum, produce a high purity liquid CO2 product for use in-process or external sales, and offset the purchasing of expensive, industrial CO2 of inferior purity.

Description

RELATED APPLICATIONS[0001]This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No. 62 / 020,883 filed Jul. 3 2014 entitled “Systems And Methods For Recovering Carbon Dioxide From Industrially Relevant Waste Streams, Especially Ethanol Fermentation Processes, For Application In Food And Beverage Production” which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.FIELD OF THE INVENTION[0002]The present invention relates to enabling the recovery of carbon dioxide (CO2) from industrially relevant waste streams containing a sufficiently high concentration of CO2. The invention is most readily applicable to the burgeoning beverage alcohol industry (microdistilleries, craft vintners, and craft breweries) in the United States, most especially the craft beer brewing industry. In a craft brewery, carbon dioxide can be recovered from fermentation tanks, bright beer tanks, and other process vessels, tanks and lines. The recovered CO2 can then be used in forced carbonation, keggin...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

The present invention is a system and method for recovering CO2 in a craft brewery. The system is designed to be cost-effective, compact, and compatible with typical brewery facilities. It can interface with the brewery operation in a minimally invasive way, adding only a minimal workload to brewery cellar operators. The system can recover CO2 from both fermentation and bright beer tanks, and can be interfaced into the brewery through flexible installations. The approach to CO2 recovery can be designed to use less expensive processing equipment, to reduce up-front capital cost. The recovered CO2 can be stored and used at a temperature and pressure useful in the brewery, and can make available for storage and usage the recovered CO2 at a cost much less than purchasing CO2 from a gas supply house. The method includes steps of removing free water and foam, compressing the CO2 stream, lowering the temperature of the CO2 stream, and transferring the liquefied CO2 into a storage.

Problems solved by technology

However, smaller operations often lack the capital required for installation of recovery equipment.

Therefore, a technological gap exists between the laboratory and industrial scales for recovery, purification and storage of CO2 where it is currently being vented and wasted.

These systems are typically very expensive, have large footprints, require extensive facility modification, and are generally not accessible to craft breweries (production less than 6 million barrels of beer per annum).

Craft breweries face a number of challenges when evaluating CO2 recovery, most of which are related to the rapid growth of their market share of the beer brewing industry.

As a result, craft breweries are limited by the availability of working capital and physical space especially concerning equipment not directly related to beer production and packaging.

Moreover, permanent modification of the facility and / or operations to accommodate a CO2 recovery system is generally not acceptable if it slows or interrupts the production of beer.

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