Want waste from zoo animals powering your car? New butanol process could make it happen
Butanol is the oft-ignored orphan of the biofuel world, but it's getting some attention down south. Scientists in New Orleans think that waste from zoo animals might be just the ticket to making the fuel for automobile use. Researchers form Tulane University aren't looking to turn the animal feces itself into fuel, but are investigating the waste product of plant-eating animals in the zoo to see what bacteria are involved in breaking down cellulose inside the animal. These bacteria, which would be genetically modified to produce more, could then be turned loose on biomass sources intended for landfills, turning waste into fuel. The U.S. DOE is funding part of the research through a grant to the Clean Power and Energy Research Consortium.
For more on the biofuel, including how it can be blened into gasoline much easier than ethanol and requires no engine modifications, check out Butanol 101 here.
[Source: Domestic Fuel via New Orleans City Business]
Photo by Sir Mervs. Licensed under Creative Commons license 2.0.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Ghen 3:15PM (8/18/2009)
Oh yum, wonder what that smells like. I already don't like gasoline but at least I'm used to the smell.
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Doug 4:05PM (8/18/2009)
I think we should be doing something with all that waste. At least capturing the methane and burning it for heat or electricity generation.
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ziv 9:36PM (8/18/2009)
Anywhere you get started on converting waste to fuel is a good start. I think about the millions of tons of energy rich human waste that goes into sewage treatment plants and wonder why we can't turn that into butanol or ethanol. Changing World Technologies claimed to have the tech to do it with turkey guts, but it turned out that they need the feed stock to to be free to compete with regular fuel producers. I can't think of anything that people want less than human waste... The CWT plant in Carthage, Missouri worked, just, but couldn't make a profit and stunk the town nearby to distraction. Not an optimal example perhaps, but the thermal depolymerization model does work, just not profitably, so far.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_depolymerization
nrb 4:57PM (8/18/2009)
Wouldn't a dairy farm make much more sense? Plant eating, more of them, often stationary (so the dung is easy to get).
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Sebastian 6:59PM (8/18/2009)
But there is more variety of bacteria (I assume) at the zoo, and the researchers are looking for these nifty bacteria, not just the waste
wincros 5:12PM (8/18/2009)
And hopefully butanol is not a green house gas and the modified bacteria do not escape into the wild.
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meg 11:04AM (8/19/2009)
we need a new topic for a horror movie anyway....it'll be like a variant on The Blob.
Carney 9:35AM (8/31/2009)
Methanol can be made from any biomass without exception (including human and animal waste), and needs (and for a long time has needed) no further research to make it happen.
Both butanol and methanol are excellent auto fuels - clean burning and can be renewable (if made from biomass).
Methanol - one carbon atom
Ethanol - two
Propanol - three
Butanol - four
The more carbon atoms, the more energy per unit of volume and the more gasoline like the fuel becomes.
Butanol may be able to run on unmodified cars designed for gasoline only. But given the cost of its production it can't replace gasoline by itself. We should have a mandate that all new cars sold in America be fully flex-fueled, able to run easily on ANY alcohol fuel (a $130 per car expense for automakers). That way in a post petroleum world butanol can be a premium fuel as well as a way for hobbyists and enthusiasts of "classic" pre-alcohol era cars to run their vehicles, but cheaper fuels like methanol can still be available to undercut gasoline.
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