This Looks Promising....

[Lord Jim]

Biofuel created by explosive technology
Peter Fimrite
Updated 11:22 pm, Sunday, January 13, 2013


Chemical engineers at UC Berkeley have created a new, cleaner fuel out of an old concoction that was once used to make explosives.

The fuel, which uses a century-old fermentation process to transform plant material into a propellant, could eventually replace gasoline and drastically cut down on greenhouse gas emissions, according to the team of Berkeley scientists.

"It's a much more efficient way of (creating renewable fuel) than many of the other products being considered," said Harvey Blanch, a professor of chemical engineering at Berkeley. "This product is one that may be closest to commercialization."

The discovery, published in the journal Nature, means corn, sugar cane, grasses and other fast-growing plants or trees, like eucalyptus, could be used to make the propellant, replacing oil.

The process uses a fermentation system discovered around 1914 by Chaim Weizmann, a chemist who later became the first president of Israel. Weizmann used a bacterium called Clostridium acetobutylicum to ferment sugars and turn them into acetone, butanol and ethanol. The process, dubbed ABE, allowed the British to manufacture cordite and make explosives used during World War I.

The process was later used to manufacture synthetic rubber, but that was unnecessary after petroleum became widely available. The last U.S. factory using the process to produce acetone and butanol closed in 1965.

The research into creating a diesel substitute is part of a 10-year development program by the Energy Biosciences Institute, a collaboration among UC Berkeley, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The research, paid for using $50 million a year from the British oil company BP, has been going on for five years.

Blanch and Douglas Clark, a professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, extracted the acetone and butanol from the fermentation mixture, according to their paper. Their co-author, chemistry Professor Dean Toste, then created a catalyst that converted the brew into a mix of hydrocarbons similar to those in diesel fuel.

The resulting substance burns as well as petroleum-based fuel and contains more energy per gallon than ethanol, according to the study. It can be produced using a variety of renewable starches and sugars that can be grown in crops.

"You can take a wide variety of sugar sources - from corn, sugar cane, molasses to woody biomass or plant biomass - and turn it into a diesel product using this fermentation process," said Blanch, adding that about 90 percent of the raw material remains in the finished product, reducing the loss of carbon. "Grasses are also a possible source. Eucalyptus could also be used. Anything that's fast-growing."

The blend could be adjusted for summer or winter driving, according to the researchers, who predicted it will be five to 10 years before the fuel is ready to be mass-marketed.

Blanch said it will probably take five years for the fuel to be perfected and become ready to be sold to the public. It could take another five years, he said, to develop a system that would produce the product on a scale large enough to meet the demand of the motoring public at a low enough cost to compete with oil-based products.[Gee, if it can do that, then it will achieve more to reduce our demand for foreign oil and fossil fuels in general in 10 years, than all the wind mills and solar panels put together will achieve in the next 50]
The expectation in California is that it will be used initially for niche markets, like the military, and eventually in trucks, trains and other vehicles that need more oomph than hybrid or battery power can provide.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/science/article/B ... z2I6EgtqsM

[Econoline]

Good news.

Though if I'm reading that article correctly, this fuel would replace diesel fuel rather than gasoline--so in order for it to achieve a mass market comparable to that of gasoline, there would have to be a much higher proportion of diesel cars and light trucks in the U.S. (something that Europe is already way ahead of us on).

Of course, since I already own a diesel-powered van (and will probably replace it with a similar vehicle should this one ever die), this development looks really promising to me...

[Lord Jim]

Yeah, the article is a little confusing...

In the opening it refers to "gasoline" but later talks about diesel fuel....

Maybe gasoline is a second stage of the technology development (sine it says "eventually") but even diesel fuel would have a huge impact since it would affect the entire trucking industry.

[oldr_n_wsr]

which uses a century-old fermentation process to transform plant material into a propellant

Still sounds a lot like moonshine.

but then again, to this alcoholic, a lot of things sound like moonshine

[Econoline]

Yeah, the article is a little confusing...

In the opening it refers to "gasoline" but later talks about diesel fuel....

Maybe gasoline is a second stage of the technology development (sine it says "eventually") but even diesel fuel would have a huge impact since it would affect the entire trucking industry.

There are already a few passenger cars available here in the US (mostly from VW and M-B) and many more in Europe and the rest of the world. I'm thinking that if this technology becomes viable and affordable there would be many more imported and, eventually, produced domestically.

[Rick]

It's added to Gas in lieu of Ethanol. It's not transformed it Gas...

[Econoline]

Jim's right; the article's a little confusing. I was going by this part of the article:

The research into creating a diesel substitute is part of a 10-year development program by the Energy Biosciences Institute, a collaboration among UC Berkeley, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The research, paid for using $50 million a year from the British oil company BP, has been going on for five years.

Blanch and Douglas Clark, a professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, extracted the acetone and butanol from the fermentation mixture, according to their paper. Their co-author, chemistry Professor Dean Toste, then created a catalyst that converted the brew into a mix of hydrocarbons similar to those in diesel fuel.

[Rick]

OK I went went back to the OP.

Maybe that was the long term goal, engines would prolly have to be modified to use it though.

A diesel substitute would be the most likely use, I mean one can burn used cooking oil in a diesel engine.

Biofuels will never be enough to replace hydrocarbons completely, so as the article points out this will be used in a niche market (I doubt it will ever get past that).

There is not enough arable land in the world to replace hydrocarbons. The only way to get away from them is to sop using plastic and use a completely different method of propulsion.

As for the Gas /diesel thang I guess it is a little confusing...

[Gob]

Heard a report on German Radio yesterday about a project in South Africa to use waste to produce methane for fuel.

http://www.dw.de/researchers-bring-the- ... a-16494923