Department of Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering

Environmental Engineering Professor Receives National Research Prize for Purifying Alcohol

 

Contacts:
Dana Schmidt, CCEE communications specialist, (515) 294-3071
Alex Wymore, ABE program assistant, (515) 294-6065
Hans van Leeuwen, professor of environmental engineering, (515) 294-5251
Jacek Koziel, assistant professor of agricultural and biosystems engineering, (515) 294-4206

Ames, Iowa – A more effective way of purifying alcohol—turning poor whisky into a smooth, well rounded drink, and converting fuel-grade ethanol into a food-grade products—has earned national recognition for two Iowa State University researchers.

The American Academy of Environmental Engineers recently awarded Hans van Leeuwen, professor of environmental engineering, and Jacek Koziel, assistant professor of agricultural and biosystems engineering, the Grand Prize for University Research. The award recognizes some of the best research being done in environmental engineering in the United States. In particular, it honors researchers for their innovation, performance and client satisfaction, and contribution to an improved quality of life and economic efficiency.

The process van Leeuwen and Koziel developed and refined is based on the removal or conversion of impurities using ozone and activated carbon. As a result of this process, the researchers found they could convert fuel-grade ethanol into a food-grade alcohol to be used in products such as alcoholic drinks, cough medicines, and mouth washes.

This new alcohol purification process could save the United States' billion dollar alcohol industry an estimated $100 million per year, which in turn, could lower the costs of certain medications that use alcohol, say researchers.

According to van Leeuwen, high value and government excise income make this product as important economically as the much larger volumes of fuel ethanol produced.

Van Leeuwen and Koziel lead a team of researchers including Lingshuang Cai, an analytical chemist and postdoctoral researcher in agricultural and biosystems engineering, and Shinnosuke Onuki, a graduate student in agricultural and biosystems engineering. They've also teamed up with entrepreneur Rick Wood in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and Mayberry, LLC, in Vinton, Iowa, to form a company called Mell O3z LLC. The group has three patents pending. They eventually hope to license their technology to industry to share the benefits with the community and possibly making U.S. alcohol exports more competitive in international markets.

Read more about this research.

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