Alcohol-Fueled Engines – Takin’ The Green Biobutanol: The Next Methanol?
by Rob Fisher (Circle Track) Racers running alcohol-fueled engines should perk up when they hear the word biobutanol. Touted as an environmentally friendly advanced biofuel, biobutanol gained recent exposure when an American research and development company specializing in the fuel was jointly bought by chemical giants DuPont and BP, both of which have far-reaching global motorsports programs.
But what exactly is it? Biobutanol is butanol produced from biomass feedstocks such as corn, sorghum, sugarcane, and so on. Butanol is a four-carbon alcohol (butyl alcohol). Like ethanol and its close cousin methanol, biobutanol is a liquid alcohol fuel. Unlike ethanol and methanol, the energy content of biobutanol is only 10 to 20 percent lower than that of gasoline rather than almost 40 percent as in the aforementioned alcohol fuels.
… In a nutshell early indications are that an internal combustion engine can run on high concentrations of biobutanol, up to 100 percent with little to no modifications to the motor. Plus, it’s far less corrosive than typical alcohol fuels and the energy content is closer to that of gasoline, which means you need to burn less of it to generate the same BTU as compared to ethanol/methanol.
In keeping with this issue’s theme, let’s say you race a Midget on methanol. If you could use biobutanol in place of the methanol, you would burn less fuel since biobutanol’s energy content is higher than methanol and you would (theoretically) have to do less post-race teardown maintenance on the motor since it’s less corrosive than methanol. READ MORE
Related posts:
- Green Racing at Petit Le Mans: Ethanol Never Tasted So Good: BP Biobutanol and Patron Tequila
- Biobutanol Creeps Toward the Market
- We Are Green: “Always Clean 110″ Project Is an Example of a Growing Trend in Biofuels: “Symbiosis” Project Produce Biodiesel, Using Recovered Methanol, Cooking Oil
- Can Methanol Really Make a Dent in US Oil Demand?
- Road Atlanta: Michelin Green-X Challenge and Dyson BioButanol Racing Reports
