Bioethanol plant to install Whitefox system

Bioethanol membrane engineering innovator Whitefox revealed that Western Plains Energy will become the first US ethanol producer to install its ICE®-XL system.
This will be installed at its 50 million gallons per year ethanol plant in Kansas.
Derek Peine, CEO at Western Plains Energy, said: “Since beginning operations in 2004, Western Plains has always been on the forefront of innovation and an early adaptor of technologies that deliver step-changes in energy efficiency and operational yield.
“In our discussion with Whitefox we found that its ICE-XL integrated membrane solution would serve as a cornerstone in fully decarbonizing our production process. Our quest to achieve net-zero emissions is something that we are passionate about, and we are excited to partner with Whitefox to help us achieve our goal.”
Tony Short, head of global sales at Whitefox, added: “Whitefox ICE-XL is an evolution of the Whitefox ICE® which we have installations in 9 US ethanol plants.
“ICE-XL fully replaces existing molecular sieves and delivers exceptional operational benefits such as up to 50% capacity increase across distillation and dehydration and 50% steam reduction when fully integrated. Our team of process engineers worked closely with Derek and his team to design a solution that would bring exceptional energy recovery and carbon reductions to enable carbon neutral fuel production.”
Gillian Harrison, CEO at Whitefox, said: "I first met Derek in 2016 and it was inspiring to hear how focussed he was on reducing the carbon footprint of ethanol production. We began discussing how we could expand the Whitefox ICE solution to a full replacement of molecular sieves, given their propensity to crack, so it's exciting to now be working with Western Plains to install our first ICE-XL and support them on their journey to Net Zero ethanol"
Engineering phase 1 is already in progress and the project has an estimated start-up and commissioning date towards the end of 2023.