Development of renewable energy sources such as ethanol has become a priority to meet growing energy demands. In the United States, the majority of ethanol is produced at dry mill facilities that convert corn to ethanol; these facilities can be a major emission source for volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Biofiltration is a promising VOC control technology but its effectiveness for the VOC mixtures emitted from ethanol production facilities has yet to be determined. The main goal of this research was to evaluate the feasibility of using biofiltration to treat ethanol plant air pollutants. To accomplish this, microbial degradation of four representative pollutants (formaldehyde, acetaldehyde, ethanol and acetic acid) was examined first in simplified batch reactors and then in a laboratory-scale biofilter system. The batch data indicate that, at a neutral pH, an enriched microbial consortium was capable of completely degrading formaldehyde, acetaldehyde and ethanol, and the Monod model was successfully utilized to describe single substrate degradation kinetics for these pollutants. However, the consortium only partially degraded acetic acid. In binary substrate experiments, acetaldehyde degradation was not significantly affected by either ethanol or formaldehyde. However, acetaldehyde inhibition of ethanol degradation was observed and inhibition kinetics were necessary to describe the observed ethanol removals. Formaldehyde degradation was inhibited in the presence of acetaldehyde and/or ethanol; however, further research will be required to identify the inhibtion. The biofilter study was performed to investigate the effects of pollutant loading, substrate mixtures and low pH on system performance. The results indicate that it is feasible to achieve greater than 97% overall removal efficiency at a short contact time of 5 seconds under neutral pH conditions. The level of substrate inhibition observed in the batch experiments was not evident in the biofilter experiments. However, low pH conditions gradually decreased the biofilter performance with a more significant impact on acetaldehyde, a result that was supported by batch data. Finally, a numerical model that integrated degradation kinetics was able to describe the biofilter performance under the test conditions. This research demonstrates that biofiltration has the potential to be a viable VOC treatment technology at corn-derived ethanol production facilities. / text

The main objective of this research was to examine uses for distillers dried grains with solubles (DDGS), a coproduct of ethanol production plant, in the fiber-reinforced plastic composites industry. Initially the effort intended to take advantage of the DDGS components, using chemical reactions, to produce coupling agents to improve the physical properties of the composite. Four different chemicals plus water were used to convert proteins into soluble amino acids. The results were not as expected, and appeared to show an early pyrolysis of DDGS components. This may be due to regeneration of proteins when pH of solutions is neutralized. Procedures were then investigated to utilize DDGS for different markets. Considering that oils and proteins of DDGS can thermally decompose, it seemed important to separate the major components and work with DDGS fiber alone. A procedure to extract oil from DDGS using ethanol and then to hydrolyze proteins with ethanol diluted with water, acid and sodium sulfite, was developed. The resulting DDGS fiber or residual material, with a low content of oil and proteins, was used as filler in a propylene matrix with a lubricant and coupling agent to make natural fiber plastic composites (NFPC). Composites containing wood flour (WPC) were prepared simultaneously with those of DDGS fiber to compare tensile properties and fracture surfaces of the specimens by scanning electron microscope (SEM). This study demonstrates that DDGS fiber can replace wood fiber as a filler in NFPC.

Aliada à crescente evolução da computação, dois fatores também começaram a receber maior atenção: o conhecimento e a informação. Esta evolução faz com que a informação possa estar disponibilizada a todos, contribuindo de certa forma, para o auxílio na aquisição de conhecimento e visando posterior tomada de decisão, observa-se também a grande importância dos bancos de dados. Este trabalho apresenta a proposta de um Sistema de Apoio à Decisão (SAD), utilizando-se de avançadas metodologias de armazenamento de dados em poderosos bancos de dados (Data Warehouse), para o controle e gerenciamento agrícola em usinas de açúcar e álcool. Foi desenvolvido um ambiente estruturado, extensível, projetado para a análise de dados não voláteis, logicamente e fisicamente transformados, provenientes de diversas aplicações, alinhados com a estrutura da empresa, atualizados e mantidos por um longo período de tempo, referidos em termos utilizados no negócio e sumarizados para análise rápida. Com a implantação destas novas tecnologias, a empresa estará apta a obter informações do nível gerencial e estratégico para ajudar nos seus processos de tomada de decisão, o que antes não era possível com os atuais sistemas de informação existentes na empresa. / Information and knowledge are receiving more attention with the growing of computing evolution. This evolution provides available information to everybody contributing for the acquisition of knowledge, transforming the database in an important key of this evolution process. This work presents a research about the use of technologies of systems of support to the decision by using methodologies of data storage in powerful data bases (Data Warehouse) for the control and management agricultural in sugar and ethanol plants. An environment was developed for the analysis of non-volatile data, extensible, projected and physically transformed, proceeding from diverse applications, aligned with the structure of the company, updated and kept for a long period of time, related in business\' terms and grouped for fast analysis. With the implantation of these new technologies, the company will be able to obtain information of the managerial and strategic level to help on its decision making processes, what was not possible before with the current systems of information existent at the company.

Master of Agribusiness / Department of Agricultural Economics / Allen Featherstone / Land values have a fascinating history after the first settlers started moving west in the 19th century. Much research has been done in agricultural economics with regards to land values and this subject will continue to be watched closely as we move further into the 21st century. The goal of this thesis is to understand the effect that ethanol plants have on the price of land around the ethanol plant. More specifically, the thesis addresses the question of “What impact do ethanol plants have on Kansas Land values?” The thesis also answers the question of “Are land values directly correlated to the proximity of an ethanol plant and if they are directly correlated, to what extent or how much more valuable is a parcel of land that is 30 miles to an ethanol plant compared to a parcel of land that is 70 miles?” As we move into the 21st century, the nation continues to look for alternative fuel sources. Ethanol produced from corn has played a key role in that search for an alternative fuel. In 2007, the state of Kansas proposed to have 29 ethanol plants built and/or operational in the near future. The majority of the ethanol plants were built in 2006 and 2007 with only 16 of those plants becoming operational. This thesis uses those 16 ethanol plants as the basis of this study. The study determines if land sale values from 2010 to 2013 were directly impacted based on the proximity to the closest ethanol plant. Corn is the main crop used in this study with regards to the production of ethanol. While other crops can be used to produce ethanol, the study only focused on the corn crops from 2010 to 2013. The trend in cash corn prices and basis data reflects the advent of the development of ethanol plants with a cash corn high of $8.05 in 2012 and a basis high of $1.84 above futures prices in 2013. In addition to cash corn prices and basis data, the study also collected land parcel sales from the years 2010 to 2013 with 9,279 total observations. Utilizing regression, an equation was estimated taking into account land price, size of land parcel sold in acres, quarter of year for sale, a year binary variable, the minimum distance of an ethanol plant to each parcel sale, the percent pasture acres, percent irrigation acres, rainfall, cropland productivity, and population density. Results indicated that land closer to an ethanol plant is priced at a premium compared to land further away. Land values will continue to be closely studied as we move into the 21st century. This study was able to provide a price point per mile of how much more valuable a land parcel is the closer it is located to an ethanol plant. While this study only factored in the closest ethanol plant to that land parcel sale, other factors such as including multiple ethanol plants located in the same town or ethanol plants that are close in proximity to each other could be further analyzed to continue research on this topic.

Aliada à crescente evolução da computação, dois fatores também começaram a receber maior atenção: o conhecimento e a informação. Esta evolução faz com que a informação possa estar disponibilizada a todos, contribuindo de certa forma, para o auxílio na aquisição de conhecimento e visando posterior tomada de decisão, observa-se também a grande importância dos bancos de dados. Este trabalho apresenta a proposta de um Sistema de Apoio à Decisão (SAD), utilizando-se de avançadas metodologias de armazenamento de dados em poderosos bancos de dados (Data Warehouse), para o controle e gerenciamento agrícola em usinas de açúcar e álcool. Foi desenvolvido um ambiente estruturado, extensível, projetado para a análise de dados não voláteis, logicamente e fisicamente transformados, provenientes de diversas aplicações, alinhados com a estrutura da empresa, atualizados e mantidos por um longo período de tempo, referidos em termos utilizados no negócio e sumarizados para análise rápida. Com a implantação destas novas tecnologias, a empresa estará apta a obter informações do nível gerencial e estratégico para ajudar nos seus processos de tomada de decisão, o que antes não era possível com os atuais sistemas de informação existentes na empresa. / Information and knowledge are receiving more attention with the growing of computing evolution. This evolution provides available information to everybody contributing for the acquisition of knowledge, transforming the database in an important key of this evolution process. This work presents a research about the use of technologies of systems of support to the decision by using methodologies of data storage in powerful data bases (Data Warehouse) for the control and management agricultural in sugar and ethanol plants. An environment was developed for the analysis of non-volatile data, extensible, projected and physically transformed, proceeding from diverse applications, aligned with the structure of the company, updated and kept for a long period of time, related in business\' terms and grouped for fast analysis. With the implantation of these new technologies, the company will be able to obtain information of the managerial and strategic level to help on its decision making processes, what was not possible before with the current systems of information existent at the company.