Bioethanol is manufactured by the fermentation of plants containing sugar and starch. In our Zeitz plant, we manufacture bioethanol from cereals - mainly wheat, but also from barley, triticale or maize - as well as sugar syrups.

Ethanol production from cereals containing starch takes place in five stages:

milling the cereal, meaning mechanical crushing of the cereal grain to release the starch component; heating and addition of water and enzymes for conversion into fermentable sugar; fermentation of the mash using yeast, whereby the sugar is converted into CO2 and ethanol; distillation and rectification, i.e. concentration and cleaning the ethanol produced by the distillation by removing by-products; drying (dehydration) of the ethanol.

When bioethanol is produced only using sugar syrup, stages 1 and 2 are not needed.

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