[chrisser]

Weird. I was just reading about butyl alcohol today.

I’m not a chemist and the article is short on specifics. Am I reading it right that the glyceryl tributyrate (tributyrin) is simply mixed with the fermentation results and then separates out the butanol and acetone from the mixture, leaving the ethanol behind with the bacteria and water?

It sounds like the catalyst part comes aftewards when they try to turn the butanol/acetone into diesel equivalent.

Wouldn’t the butanol by itself be useful as a gasoline replacement?

My (limited) understanding of the ABE process was that it was impractical because the butanol poised the bacteria befor they could generate high amounts of butanol, and then the resulting slurry was mostly water that had to be distilled out (with large energy inputs). It sounds like this tributyrin stuff could make ABE more useful for butanol production.

[Red Badger]

The ... process employs ...bacterium ...to ferment sugars into acetone, butanol and ethanol. Blanch and Clark developed a way of extracting the acetone and butanol from the fermentation mixture while leaving most of the ethanol behind...Toste developed a catalyst that converted this ideally-proportioned brew into a mix of long-chain hydrocarbons that resembles the combination of hydrocarbons in diesel fuel.

They discovered that ...glyceryl tributyrate...could extract the acetone and butanol from the fermentation broth while not extracting much ethanol. Tributyrin is not toxic to the bacterium and...doesn't mix....

-------------------------------------------------------------- Wouldn’t the butanol by itself be useful as a gasoline replacement?

Yes.