Butanol is a hydrocarbon used as a fuel and solvent. It has advantages over ethanol, such as easier starting in cold weather and more energy when burned. Butanol can be toxic and is produced from biomass or fossil fuels. Its high cost and feedstock requirements limit its use.
Butanol is a flammable liquid that is used as a fuel and as an industrial solvent. Like gasoline, it is a hydrocarbon, meaning it is composed of the chemical elements hydrogen, oxygen and carbon. Most internal combustion engines can burn butanol without problems, especially more modern engines. This fact has led to research into its use as a fuel additive and as an alternative fuel.
The interest in butanol as an alternative fuel largely stems from the fact that it has some significant advantages over ethanol. For example, an engine that runs on this hydrocarbon will have easier starting in cold weather than one that uses ethanol. This is due to a chemical property called heat of vaporization. Fuel must be vaporized before it can be burned in an engine, and butanol can be vaporized more easily at low temperatures than ethanol. It is also much less evaporative than gasoline or ethanol and releases more energy than ethanol when burned.
Due to the way it is structured at the molecular level, butanol is considered an alcohol. In practice this means, among other things, that it is capable of dissolving in water, and that it is quite toxic, especially if its fumes are not adequately contained or are not ventilated. It also exists in several slightly different forms, called isomers. These different chemical structures all have the same chemical formula and components, but have slightly different properties. One of the isomers, known as tert-butanol, is actually a solid at room temperature and therefore cannot be used on its own as a fuel.
The production of butanol for fuel was traditionally obtained from the fermentation of biomass, such as algae, corn and other cellulose-containing plant materials that could not be used for food and would otherwise have gone to waste. The fermentation process is mainly facilitated by a type of bacteria called Clostridium acetobutylicum. Oddly enough, these bacteria are quite closely related to those that cause botulism. Other microorganisms are also capable of fermenting these materials, and research into these types of production techniques is ongoing. More recently, most butanol has been produced industrially from fossil fuels.
Given butanol’s advantages over other fuels, many wonder why it isn’t more widely used. The main reason is that the cost of manufacturing and placing it on the market translates into a much higher cost to the consumer than the cost of gasoline, in many cases. Also, although it has a higher energy content than ethanol, it requires slightly more feedstock to produce. Some new developments, however, show some promise as they are able to dramatically increase butanol yield through fermentation.
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