Question

how to prepare ethanol using alcohol
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Answer 1

Answer:

• Milling: Whole corn kernels are ground into a form of flour, or meal. The meal is mainly starch. A starch is a carbohydrate made up of long chains of sugar molecules.
• Liquefaction: Water is added to the meal to make ‘slurry.’ The slurry is heated to break the long starch molecules into smaller pieces. The enzyme alpha-amylase is added to catalyze (or speed up) the breakdown of the starch molecules.
• Saccharification: Starch molecule pieces are broken down into the simple sugar glucose. This reaction is catalyzed by an enzyme called glucoamylase.
• Fermentation: Single-celled microorganisms called yeast are added to the slurry. Fermentation is the biochemical process that occurs when yeast break down glucose. Yeast gets energy from glucose. As a result, ethanol is produced.
• Distillation and Dehydration: The product of the fermentation process is only 10-15% ethanol. It must be concentrated to become pure (100%) ethanol. Ethanol has a lower boiling point than water. It is selectively evaporated and condensed in a process called distillation. This process produces ethanol that is 95% pure. The remaining 5% of the mixture is water. The mixture is strained and dehydrated to produce pure ethanol.
• Denaturation: A small amount of gasoline is added to fuel ethanol to make it undrinkable.