Have you heard of biobutanol? Is one of the "new generation biofuels, but ... who comes from the past, as until the mid 20th century a number of countries producing the environmentally friendly fuel in small quantities. Today, 60 years after the production and use of biobutanol (butanol produced from biomass) and again employing experts and companies, and even some of them argue that the fuel not only has nothing to envy from ethanol, but also superior in connection therewith.
One is a chemical engineer at the Agricultural Research Service U.S. Nazimp Kouresi. As he says, biobutanol offers several advantages, as it can be transported through the existing distribution network, so no additional investment, can be produced in facilities that produce ethanol.
Furthermore, it has greater resistance to water contamination in gasoline blends can be used comfortably in internal combustion engines. Also worth noting that according to the results of a study of companies BP and Dupont a mixture of butanol (16%) and gasoline behaves like E10 (ie, a mixture of ethanol 10% and 90% gasoline).
Fewer processing steps
The Kouresi since 2003 had begun to study the production of biobutanol from wheat straw. The method is based, like other bacteria, the use (of the species Clostridium) in the process of fermentation, but the following three instead of four stages of processing and produces additional quantities of biobutanol fold compared with the traditional method, as shown by initial tests . Then, after improvement of the Kouresi and co-produced by 430 grams sugar 192 grams of acetone, biobutanol and ethanol. This means that if mazikopoiithei the process can produce 375 liters of these chemicals per ton of straw.
H biobutanol, though belonging to biofuels "new generation" is not something new in the world of energy. For example, during WWII the U.S., Britain, the Soviet Union and India have produced the fuel for their energy needs, but without follow-up due to increased production (cheap) oil covered the demand in the postwar era.
As for the Agricultural Research Service (ARS), which employs Mr. Kouresi, this is the main scientific research agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which runs 1,200 research projects in 22 key national projects, employs 2,100 scientists and other 6,000 employees and the budget for 2007 was 1.1 billion dollars. (So, to get a taste of expenditure and personnel working outside the vital area of research).
The chemical engineer at the Agricultural Research Service U.S. Nazimp Kouresi adds enzymes into a bioreactor for the simultaneous hydrolysis of wheat straw into simple sugar and the production of butanol.