Barbecue coal from brewers spent grain

With the project “KWKplusBierkohle” the German brewery Schneider Weisse and the Fraunhofer UMSICHT Institute Branch in Sulzbach-Rosenberg want to increase energy efficiency in the brewing process. The climate-neutral coal, which can be extracted from the spent grain, is to be marketed as barbecue coal by the Lüneburg charcoal plant. The joint project, funded by the Federal Ministry of Economics, will run until 2020.

Using a conversion process developed by Fraunhofer (TCR^® process), the dewatered and dried grain can be converted into coal. The “by-products” of the process are gas and oil, which in turn can be used to generate electricity and heat. The recovered energy is fed back into the brewing process via combined heat and power (CHP), which improves the energy balance of the plant. The resulting coal can be reused as bio-char.

Fabian Stenzel, Head of the Biological Process Engineering Department at Fraunhofer UMSICHT Sulzbach-Rosenberg says: “If we succeed in marketing the carbonisate as barbecue coal briquettes, this would enormously increase the overall cost-effectiveness of the concept. And the uncertainty of the acceptance of the spent grain would also be eliminated”. In addition to economic efficiency and overall plant productivity, the potential greenhouse gas savings of the overall concept are also evaluated.

Georg Schneider, owner of the brewery “Schneider Weisse”, is proud to be part of the project: “The innovative strength of the beer industry lies in the medium-sized businesses. Large corporations only focus on new developments and ideas when they see them as a success. Energetic recycling of spent grains from beer is another important step towards greater sustainability and independence”.