Biogenkoji Research Institute - Genkoji Value Recycle(TM) & Health Products

Bio-ethanol

Bio-ethanol production is booming not only in the United States but also in many other countries worldwide. They already consume 30 million tons of corn for producing ethanol in U.S. and many new plants are under construction due to the increasing oil price and more corn will be converted into ethanol in coming years. Bush administration claims they would produce 130 million tons of ethanol for fuel purpose and that would require 300 million tons of corn in U.S. alone.

We attended an ethanol industry expo in Kansas City in August, 2006. There we heard local farmers saying “ We want corn, not DDGS.” at a panel discussion. DDGS is a by-product feed that is produced at ethanol factories, drying the wastes from ethanol production. While factories are very keen to sell DDGS, yet farmers are still quite reluctant due to their concerns on quality. There are a few issues involved in ethanol industry around DDGS.

Bio-ethanol is supposed to be environmentally friendly, however, there are costs and burdens involved as factories consume a large quantity of oil or gas in drying distillery wastes.
As they dry the wastes at high temperature, quality of the feed deteriorates significantly and also there is smell issue due to drying process.

Same problems we have experienced in Shochu industry in Kagoshima are happening in U.S. and the rest of the world at a much larger scale. Moreover, it could create food crisis due to short supply of corn and other grains. We should look for a solution that can respond to all of those issues in a comprehensive way.

GEN method can be a solution for those problems.

As it is a natural fermentation process, little energy (oil or gas) is required except for sterilization treatment. Also the microorganism self-propagate, therefore the cost would be much lower.
As the fermentation occurs under normal temperature of 40 degrees C, the nutritive substance is not destroyed by the heat. Moreover varieties of enzymes are produced in the fermentation process.
BOD of the steam created by Koji fermentation is only 30ppm due to low temperature fermentation. The smell can be treated by deodorant as Koji itself is effective for eliminating odor.
At time of food crisis, we have to utilize organic materials for food use and feed use first rather than using the materials for other uses. Koji can change by-products and wastes into food and feed by low cost fermentation process and moreover, they are effective for immunity and digestibility.