Companies to Produce Edible Ethanol Co-Product

DomesticFuel.com
Posted by Cindy Zimmerman – March 22nd, 2011

Two Illinois companies are working together to produce an ethanol co-product that has a variety of food, industrial and chemical product applications.

Prairie Gold (PGI) of Bloomington, and GTL Resources USA of Itasca, Illinois have agreed to collaborate on the construction of a zein protein production plant. Zein is a high valued co-product that can be produced from the corn ethanol process. Zein is a natural food-based polymer that can be used to make coatings for candies, gum, and pills, as well as confectioners glaze, flexible films, and biodegradable plastics and fibers. Zein is edible and in its pure form is colorless and odorless which makes it ideal for many applications in the food, pharmaceutical, and specialty chemical industries. It has already been used for many years in the pharmaceutical industry and as a textile fiber substitute, but interest in the product is growing because it is a natural substitute for existing fossil fuel based alternatives. However, until now zein has been too expensive to enter into high volume applications.

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