Chinese rice wine, fermented from sticky rice with wheat Qu and yeast, is one of the three most ancient wines in the world. Due to the high contents of amino acids, proteins, oligosaccharides, vitamins, and mineral elements, it is also widely known for its healthy function (Que, Mao, Zhu, & Xie, 2006). However, during the pretreatment of Chinese rice wine manufacture, raw rice is immerged with abundant water for a long time (5-10 days) and cooked by steam to gelatinize rice starch (Fig. 1).Therefore, this stage is a water-intensive, energy- and labor-consuming process.
Large amounts of waste water are produced from the process,which in turn causes severe environmental problems (
Zhu, Zhang,Shi, & Mao, 2004).