Bio Fuels Revolution – BioButanol
BioButanol, Bio Butanol or Butanol is a superior alcohol that can be produced by a number of organisms including Clostridium acetobutylicum, C. beijerinckii and now genetic modified E. coli, using a number of feedstock (subtracts). Recently, Escherichia coli have been studied to produce higher alcohols including isobutanol, 1-butanol, 2-methyl-1-butanol, 3-methyl-1-butanol and 2-phenylethanol from glucose, a renewable carbon source.
Butanol, as a higher alcohols offer advantages as gasoline substitutes because of its higher energy density and lower hygroscopicity. Higher alcohols (C4 and C5) have energy densities closer to gasoline, are not hygroscopic, and are less volatile compared with ethanol.
In this fermentation, acetone, butanol, and ethanol (ABE) are produced in the ratios 3:6:1, with butanol being the major product. For this reason it is called butanol or ABE fermentation. Butanol has been produced from agricultural waste, cracked corn, packing peanuts, starch based peanut-shaped packing/filling material), soy molasses, and various other substrates.
The big challenge is to improve the economics of butanol production. As a result an intensive amount of research has been done to make these renewable fuels feasible. In these investigations the economics of various fermentation and recovery systems such as immobilized cell technology to enhance reactor productivity and butanol separation techniques have been studied.
The majority of these studies have demonstrated that substrate cost is a major factor that impacts economics of butanol production to become a major player in the Biofuels Revolution.
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