Apr
15
A New way to Upgrade Ethanol to Butanol
April 15, 2013 | 1 Comment
In view of some experts regarding butanol as “the gasoline of the future” the report on this discovery holds the potential to reduce the costs of converting ethanol factories to the production of butanol.
Wass and his group at the University of Bristol in the U.K. are reporting the discovery of a new family of homogeneous ruthenium diphosphine catalysts that could enable those factories to continue producing ethanol, with the ethanol then converted into butanol.
Ethanol to Butanol Converting Catalyst of homogeneous ruthenium diphosphine. Image Credit: University of Bristol. Click image for the largest view.
Wass discussed that ethanol has become a leading biofuel as millions of gallons are added to gasoline around the country each year despite some disadvantages. The leading ethanol is it has a lower energy content per gallon than gasoline, which can reduce fuel mileage when thermal efficiency isn’t engineered into the engine. Ethanol also has a corrosive effect on some materials used in cheap engine and fuel system designs and so can’t easily be used in those designs in amounts higher than 10-15 percent.
Wass said, “Ethanol actually is a poor alternative fuel,” he said incorrectly. “Butanol is much better. It contains about 30 percent more energy per gallon than ethanol, is easier to handle and more of it can be blended into each gallon of gasoline. In fact, you could fuel a car on pure butanol and it would run absolutely fine. That’s the basis for butanol’s emerging reputation as ‘the gasoline of the future,'” which is a correct view.
Efforts are already underway to convert some ethanol factories in the U.S. Corn Belt to production of butanol, Wass explained. Those factories currently process corn into alcohol with the same fermentation technology used to make beer and beverage alcohol. Converting those factories to ferment corn into butanol would require costly modifications, estimated at $10 million-$15 million for a typical plant.
The Bristol discovery of a new family of catalysts could enable those factories to continue producing ethanol, with the ethanol then converted into butanol. With the new catalysts, ethanol factories would require less retrofitting to produce butanol. Catalysts speed up chemical reactions by lowering the amount of energy needed need to jumpstart reactions. They enable production of hundreds of everyday products, and many of the proteins that sustain life are catalysts called enzymes.
Wass said, “These new catalysts are much better than any previously in existence. There’s a long way to go before they are commercialized, but we are reporting a fundamental advance in that direction. Quite simply, they are the world’s best catalysts for making the gasoline of the future.”
The new catalysts are more selective, solving a difficult problem in which current catalysts churn out butanol as well as unwanted products. Wass said the new catalysts yield 95 percent butanol out of the total products from each batch in laboratory-scale tests.
Wass’ University of Bristol team also noted some funding came from British Petroleum.
So far the development of biosynthetic pathways for butanol synthesis have dominated recent research. But these processes are still challenged by very low conversion and modest selectivity. The Bristol team is at the leading edge of a biomass-sugar-fermentation-catalytic conversion process that holds great promise.
Everything in the process series is commercial scale with only the last step requiring more technological understanding and innovation.
The Bristol team may well have the key by focusing on the selectivity matter. They report achieving high selectivity because the catalyst imparts control over acetaldehyde aldol condensation reactions, with evidence for an on-metal condensation step.
The team isn’t commercially ready and has quite a way to go. But the handle is in hand and the march is on.
Comments
1 Comment so far
Feedburner
Reddit
Stumbleupon
Is this real ?
How much yield percent ?
Is this n-butanol or butanol ?