The Ethanol Plant Photos

A modern ethanol plant requires a lot of equipment. We've broken our equipment list into the pieces linked on the side. You can access any of them by clicking on the highlighted words, or by clicking on the side bar on the right.

Any business needs Shipping and Receiving, with an ethanol plant this means truck scales, local grain storage and handling. The Moses Lake ethanol plant uses railroad unit trains (shuttle trains) to move corn from the Midwest to our own grain storage elevators. From there, the grain is moved by truck to the plant. When the grain arrives at the plant, it is made into Mash by crushing it and heating it with water. The starches are converted into sugars and the mash is Fermented into beer. Fermenting is a batch process, so the Beer is Stored while it waits to be Distilled. Distillation doesn't produce pure alcohol, the remaining water is removed by Molecular Sieves. After the alcohol is removed from the beer, what's left are called whole stillage. The whole stillage is Centrifuged to separate it into thin stillage and distiller's grains. The distiller's grains can be sold to dairy farms and feed lots, or it can be Dried to make dried distiller's grains, which can be shipped farther. Half of the thin stillage is used to make more mash. The other half is Evaporated to make syrup which is added to the distiller's grains to make them more nutritious, along with distilled water which is used to make more mash. The pure ethanol is denatured with gasoline and additives and Stored in Tanks before sending it to the customer. The distillation process requires heat which is provided by Boilers and Heat Exchangers, and cooling which is provided by Evaporative Coolers using well water. All this is at the ethanol plant site, which is known as the Moses Lake Biofuel Facility (MLBF). In addition, to allow the unloading of 110-railcar long trains filled with corn, the facility includes a Grain Elevator on unit train approved track of the Columbia Basin railroad (CBRR).

To build the plant, Liquafaction rents equipment, but also Owns Construction Equipment. Liquafaction owns a 45,000 square foot Warehouse adjacent to the ethanol plant. These properties are just outside of the city boundary of the town of beautiful town of Moses Lake in Grant County, Washington State.