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."

Energy density

[by (1706743)]

Butanol has almost the same energy density as gasoline, and burns with less air. [wikipedia.org] Send me a few gallons, and after I rich out the mixture (no fancy computer-controlled mixture for me...), I'll report back!

Re:Mmmm

[Dynedain]

Should be:

1 for my car,
1 for me.
2 for my car,
1, 2, for me.
3 for my car,
1, 2, 3, for me...(hic)

Re:Energy density

[by (1706743)]

Actually Ethanol has a greater Octane rating than Standard Gasoline !

Sure, but we're talking about Butanol, not Ethanol. And while Butanol does have a reasonable RON octane rating, it has a less favorable MON octane rating.

Re:Wait, wait, wait ... I've seen this before ...

[cawpin]

He didn't say "Whiskey" but "Whisky" which is correct.

The "Pizza-baking truck" phenomenon?

[brasselv]

Am I the only one noticing a pattern here.

        1. Reputable scientists publish research "X".
                --> e.g.: "On some possible applications of AI-blabla to improve car safety"
        2. Same scientists explain X to mainstream journalists, and in the process they simplify the message (sometimes in good faith, sometimes to get PRs).
                --> e.g: "Cars will become more intelligent in the next 5 years"
        3. Mainstream journalists write articles where X is further stretched.
                --> e.g: "May be cars will drive themselves in the next 5 years"
        4. Headline of such articles go a further mile in stretching X.
                --> e.g.: "Are drivers obsolete?"
        5. by the time X morphs on /. it has totally become Y.
                --> e.g. "Scientists claim that uber-intelligent robotic cars have made drivers redundant. And my home-assembled truck overlord is also baking pizzas. It runs Linux."

Re:ethanol

[mweather]

Butanol, actually.

Powers the economy, eh?

[moosesocks]

"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.

Whisky accounts for approximately £2bn of Scotland's £86.3bn GDP.

Nice try though. Check your references before making absurd generalizations like this one. (I'll bet you also didn't know that there are also large swaths of the country that neither produce nor consume Whisky in meaningful quantities. )

Re:Misleading headline.

[Equuleus42]

Yep. Also important to consider is that many cars have knock sensors and don't need higher octane fuel. Here's [about.com] a good article that talks more about it.

Re:Misleading headline.

[rapiddescent]

I used to work at Glenturret Distillery [wikipedia.org] 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.