GENERAL KNOWLEDGE

Detailed explanation-1: -Downstream processing consisted of anhydrous ethanol recovery using distillation and molecular sieves, co-product (lignin) recovery/utilization to generate steam and electricity, and waste water treatment.

Detailed explanation-2: -Downstream processing involves all unit operations after fermentation that improve the purity of the final ethanol product. Ethanol is typically purified using combinations of distillation and molecular sieving. The fermented broth from the beer well is sent to a traditional distillation column to obtain 95% ethanol.

Detailed explanation-3: -Typical operations to achieve this are filtration, centrifugation, sedimentation, precipitation, flocculation, electro-precipitation, and gravity settling.

Detailed explanation-4: -Distillation, the present method of separating ethanol from the fermentation broth, is an energy-intensive one and frequently uses more energy than is available from the ethanol recovered. There are many investigations under way to find alternative, less energy-intensive techniques for the ethanol-water separation.