• Biofuels: What Are They?

  Filed under biocatalysis, biofuels
  Feb 22
  Typically, the term biofuels means transportation fuels. This is worth remembering because biological materials that include ethanol, vegetable oils, and animal fats have been used for centuries for cooking and lighting (think of alcohol burners, old-fashioned street lamps, candles). But today, almost no one is thinking about using biofuels for anything other than powering internal combustion engines (The idea is not a novel as it sounds; Henry Ford originally designed the Ford Model T to run on ethanol, not gasoline).

  Currently there are two biofuels available in large enough quantities to have an impact on fuel consumption: bio-ethanol and biodiesel.  Bio-ethanol is essentially the same substance humans have been producing for 6000 years in beverages by fermenting sugars present in almost any starchy vegetable or sugary fruit. The main difference is the refining needed following distillation to produce ethanol to the substantial exclusion of water. Only then can it burn efficiently in a truck or automobile.

  Biodiesel is completely different, chemically. It is produced by reacting plant or animal fats with methanol to produce long-chain fatty acid methyl esters, which can be blended in substantial amounts with traditional petroleum-derived diesel and used as a transportation fuel. Biodiesel is, in point of fact, a good fuel, and it is cleaner-burning than traditional diesel. On some farms all the tractors and farm equipment are run on 100% biodiesel. 

  There are other biofuels–butanol and hydrocarbons, for example– in intense development. How good are these various bioifuels? Stay tuned, more information is forthcoming.

  Tagged as: biofuels, industrial biotechnology
  
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