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Scottish Scientists Develop Whisky Biofuel
RabbitWho writes "It gives a whole new meaning to the phrase 'one for the road.' Whisky, the spirit that powers the Scottish economy, is being used to develop a new biofuel which could be available at petrol pumps in a few years.
This biofuel can be produced from two main by-products of the whisky distilling process – 'pot ale,' the liquid from the copper stills, and 'draff,' the spent grains.
Copious quantities of both waste products are produced by the £4bn whisky industry each year, and the scientists say there is real potential for the biofuel, to be available at local garage forecourts alongside traditional fuels. It can be used in conventional cars without adapting their engines. The team also said it could be used to fuel planes and as the basis for chemicals such as acetone, an important solvent."
Butanol has almost the same energy density as gasoline, and burns with less air. Send me a few gallons, and after I rich out the mixture (no fancy computer-controlled mixture for me...), I'll report back!
Yep. Also important to consider is that many cars have knock sensors and don't need higher octane fuel. Here's a good article that talks more about it.
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I used to work at Glenturret Distillery and pretty much all of the by products were recycled or used in some way. Even the casks were ex-bourbon or ex-Sherry casks. The draff (remainder of the 'mash' process) was picked up by a local farmer twice a day and fed to his cattle (cue corny joke for the tourists about pissed cattle). Very rich in energy apparently.
Distilleries in the past had had explosions from the from the spirit dense air in the still rooms - I can see why the pot ale (which is actually quite a lot of liquid that is left in the still) is useful for butanol. The spirit safe - a locked glass cupboard in the still room had a mechanical chute to "cut" the spirit run - from a wash still (the first distillation) only about 40% of the total volume was taken for the 2nd spirit still. The article didn't say whether the butanol was made from the wash still pot ale or the spirit still. This has quite significant volume ramifications. A wash still based product would have much larger potential volumes than a spirit still product. Often, a wash still is twice the size of a spirit still. On a slow day we used to make molotov cocktails from spirit and got up to all sorts of high jinks.
Hopefully this will provide much needed jobs in rural Scotland.