Scottish Scientists Develop Process to Make Biobutanol From Whisky Byproducts

Scottish Scientists Develop Process to Make Biobutanol From Whisky Byproducts

By Scott Doggett August 17, 2010

Researchers at Edinburgh Napier University in Scotland have developed a process to produce biobutanol from the byproducts of whisky distilling.

Don't laugh. Butanol can be used in unmodified gasoline engines and contains 30 percent more energy than ethanol.

The university has filed a patent for the new fuel process, developed over the last two years at a cost of $405,000 by its Biofuel Research Centre.

The process uses the two main byproducts of the whisky production process - pot ale, the liquid from the copper stills; and draff, the spent grains - as the basis for producing the butanol that can then be used as fuel.

The Edinburgh Napier team focused on Scotland's $6.2 billion whisky industry as a ripe resource for developing biobutanol. The Scottish malt whisky industry produces 423 million gallons of pot ale and 206,132 tons of draff annually.

The university plans to create a spin-out company to take the new fuel to market and leverage the commercial opportunity, in the bid to make it available at petrol pumps.

The technology for developing biofuel from whisky was inspired from a century-old process created by Chaim Weizmann, a Jewish refugee chemist in Manchester who studied the butanol fermentation initially as part of a program to produce rubber synthetically.

The process was then used in explosives manufacture and helped win both WWI and WWII.

Scott Doggett:  is an AutoObserver.com Associate Editor.