Upgrading Ethanol: Local Man’s Project Earns ACGA Award

by Larry Kershner (The Messenger) A post-graduate student at Michigan State University thinks that upgrading ethanol to a higher grade of alcohol - 1-butanol - will help the ethanol industry get past the "blender's wall," especially as the price of corn rises and crude oil prices fall.
Tyler Jordison, 24, of rural Fort Dodge and a 2006 graduate of Fort Dodge Senior High, said he's been interested in biofuels since he visited the Iowa Corn booth at the Iowa State Fair while a sophomore at Simpson College, in Indianola.
Jordison, a chemical engineer working in his second year of his doctorate degree program, said using existing known chemical processes, ethanol can be upgraded to 1-butanol, making it a more efficient fuel, since it contains a longer carbon tail than ethanol, thus having more energy to burn.
...However, using what is called the Guerbet reaction, ethanol plants would be able to add some new processing equipment and manufacture 1-butanol, using ethanol as the feed stock. The same process can be used to upgrade 1-butanol to hexanol, which would contain even more enegry. READ MORE