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TECHNOLOGY: Alcohol: Bioethanol

Bioethanol - a source of renewable energy

Visit our new microsite on bioethanol: www.bioethanol.vogelbusch.com
powered by ethanol

 

 Bioethanol is an important renewable energy source. While already Henry Ford considered it "the fuel of the future" (his famous Ford Model T ran on ethanol) it was only in the 1970ies that Brazil and the US established a fuel ethanol industry as a result of the oil crisis. 

Later the emphasis of bioethanol promotion included not only energy security but also environmental benefits. Bioethanol produces considerably lower emissions on combustion and it only releases the same amount of carbon dioxide as plants bound while growing, which helps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Energy policy targets meanwhile triggered a boom for bioethanol all around the world.

Bioethanol is a readily available, clean fuel additive that is used in combustion engines. It can be utilized in different ways:

  • Hydrous ethanol (95 percent by volume) contains some water. It is employed directly as a gasoline substitute in cars with modified engines. 
  • Anhydrous (or dehydrated) ethanol is nearly free of water and at least 99 percent pure. This ethanol can be blended with conventional fuel at a ratio  between 5 percent (E5) to 85 percent (E85). E5 can be used in  modern engines without modification. Higher blends require modified engines as run on so-called flexible fuel vehicles. 
  • Finally, bioethanol is also used to manufacture ETBE (ethyl-tertiary-butyl-ether), a fuel additive for conventional gasoline.

Basically alcohol, it is made from a variety of agricultural products that contain starch (grain, mostly corn, and tubers like cassava) or sugar (sugar beet, sugar cane); and - although large-scale still in the preliminary stages - from cellulose plants. Bioethanol is made in a biological process, which is fermentation and subsequent enrichment by distillation/rectification and dehydration, the core technologies of VOGELBUSCH.

 

Visit our new microsite on bioethanol: www.bioethanol.vogelbusch.com

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