Kansas State to build new feed mill

Kansas State University reports that it will have a new feed research mill by the end of 2011. Work on the new mill is set to begin in late 2010 and should be completed in about a year, according to Keith Behnke, a professor in Kansas State's department of grain science and industry.
The $12.5M facility, to be named after the founder of O.H. Kruse Grain & Milling thanks to a $2M lead gift from the Kruse family, will replace outdated feed mills belonging to the grain science and animal science departments. It will serve as the new home of the feed science and management program, which has produced about 700 graduates over its nearly 60 years.
The facility will include a modern, automated 5-ton-per-hour feed mill, a liquid feed research facility, and a Bio-Safety Level 2 teaching and research feed mill. The mill is designed in such a way that scientists will be able to safely work with low virulence pathogens such as salmonella in feeds, but also use the facility for other research, teaching and outreach activities when not used in the Bio-Safety Level 2 mode. "The new mill is designed to accommodate nearly any type of processing research and data acquisition that is needed by an industrial client or university scientist," said Behnke.
Part of the impetus for the new feed mill is the selection of the old Kansas State animal science feed mill site as the location for the new $650 million National Bio- and Agro-Defense Facility (NBAF) laboratory to be built by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. NBAF will replace an aging Bio-Safety Level 3 facility on Plum Island, New York.
"With the new mill just across the street from NBAF, K-State can provide specialty livestock diets to support infectious disease experiments, oral vaccine studies and other trials under high level bio-safety controlled conditions. This work cannot be done anywhere else in the U.S.," said Kirk Schulz, the university's president.
The preliminary design and cost estimate of the feed mill was provided by Younglove Construction, Sioux City, Iowa. In addition to the processing operations, the facility will contain corrugated grain bins for conducting large-scale grain storage and grain quality preservation research.
The Buhler Corporation has agreed to install a vertical shaft hammer mill for research and teaching, said Dirk Maier, head of the department of grain science and industry. "In addition to a traditional pellet mill, we will have a Kahl 'flat-bed' pellet mill that will be a technology platform for pelleting biomass for cellulosic biofuels research. Several devices, such as a Kahl expander and a CPM Hygenizer, will be available to conduct feed sterilization and sanitation research." Maier said he expects that the feed industry will be required to consider feed sterilization in the near future to satisfy new food/feed safety laws that are under consideration in the U.S. Congress.
Because of long term interests in biofuels from cellulosic materials, there will be space in the new mill for a "semi-works" scale biorefinery that can use nearly any biomass as raw material. The facility is also expected to include pilot-scale oilseed crushing and processing equipment.
The state of Kansas has committed to providing about half of the funding required for the new mill to replace the existing feed mill. Additional cash and in-kind equipment donations are to provide the remaining resources needed for construction.