U.S. Department of Energy - Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy

Advanced Manufacturing Office

OIT Times: Wheat Milling Byproducts

June 21, 2000

Mill feed is a by-product of wheat flour milling processes, resulting in 6.5 million tons of animal feed per year. This amount could be reduced by 50% if the carbohydrate content in the mill feed were used as valuable feedstocks for chemical production. OIT Agriculture Team partnersncluding Mennel Milling Co., Pacific Northwest National Lab, and Pendleton Flour Mills, Inc.re developing a process to recover the starch for producing chemical feedstocks such as lactic acid, mixed glycols, polyols and alcohols. Energy use will be reduced significantly with electricity requirements falling 94%.