Veridium Corporation (VRDM.OB) has received an order from Ethanol Africa for the use of its patent-pending Corn Oil Extraction System(TM) at Ethanol Africa’s new Bothaville, South Africa ethanol production facility. Veridium’s proprietary new Corn Oil Extraction Systems(TM) extract high grade corn oil from an ethanol by-product called distillers dried grain (DDG). Veridium’s technology can remove up to 75% of the corn oil from within the DDG in two stages.
The first stage extracts 1.1 to 1.3 million gallons per year and corresponds to about 30% of the corn oil in the DDG for a 40 million gallon per year facility. The second stage of the Veridium technology recovers another 30% to 45% of the corn oil in the DDG, corresponding to another 1.2 to 2.2 million gallons of corn oil per year out of a 40 million gallon per year ethanol facility. 3 million gallons per year of high grade corn oil converts to 3 million gallons per year of biodiesel. This equates to a 7% increase in fuel production out of a 40 million gallon per year ethanol facility, and a significant increase in plant productivity out of the plant’s existing infrastructure.
The Ethanol Africa order is for the first stage of Veridium’s technology and the system is expected to be installed in line with the onset of operations at Ethanol Africa’s new Bothaville, South Africa ethanol production facility later this year. Ethanol Africa is headquartered in Bothaville, South Africa, and intends to build eight 40 million gallon per year ethanol production facilities.
Said David Winsness, chief executive officer of Veridium’s industrial design division, “Our technologies are very cost-effective and environmentally friendly. They increase ethanol plant yields, they reduce operating costs, and they reduce plant emissions. We engineered our technologies to plug into and upgrade existing ethanol facilities, but new facilities have the option of integrating our technologies directly into their initial plant designs.”
About Veridium’s Corn Oil Extraction System(TM)
Currently, the majority of ethanol production is based on a dry milling technique that utilizes more than 1 billion bushels of corn to produce 3 billion gallons per year of ethanol (Fuel #1). The dry mill process converts the starch from the kernel of corn into sugar and then the sugar into ethanol. The balance of the corn (non-starch components) then goes through a dewatering and dehydration process where the byproduct is sold as a commercial feed ingredient called distillers dried grain (“DDG”). DDG contains the majority of the corn oil that was present in the kernel. Today, the 1 billion bushels of corn currently used in the dry mill ethanol process contain roughly 300 million gallons of corn oil that is currently sold for about $0.03 per pound as commercial feed. The new Veridium technology presents another option – cost effective conversion into Biodiesel (Fuel #2).
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