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Ethanol Production from Lignocellulosic Biomass: Overview
Published in Charles E. Wyman, Handbook on Bioethanol, 2018
Ethanol is a versatile transportation fuel and fuel additive, as shown in Chapter 3. Ethanol is currently blended typically at 10% levels with gasoline to extend the U.S. gasoline supply, and Brazil employs 22% blends of ethanol in all gasoline used. Because ethanol has a higher octane than gasoline, it also boosts the octane of the blend, reducing the need to use toxic additives such as benzene in this role. Furthermore, as noted before, ethanol provides oxygen to the fuel, reducing tailpipe emissions of CO and unburned hydrocarbons that pollute our air. However, even though ethanol has a much lower vapor pressure than gasoline, the vapor pressure of blends actually increases compared to the gasoline to which the ethanol is added, causing concerns about the impact of greater evaporative emissions on smog formation. The vapor pressure of the gasoline blending stock to which ethanol is added can be reduced to compensate for this small (about 1 psi) vapor pressure change, but current economic and market forces do not favor such an approach. Alternatively, ethanol can be reacted with isobutylene to form ethyl tertiary butyl ether (ETBE), which provides all the favorable properties of direct addition of ethanol and lowers the vapor pressure of the blend. In addition, ETBE is more easily integrated into the gasoline distribution system because it is very similar to gasoline and doesn’t suffer from limitations such as the tendency to phase separate with water that ethanol does.
Production of Biofuels
Published in K.A. Subramanian, Biofueled Reciprocating Internal Combustion Engines, 2017
Ethyl tertiary-butyl ether (ETBE) is produced from ethanol and isobutylene in a catalytic reaction. If isobutylene is produced from fossil sources (natural gas), ETBE is not completely a biofuel. The European Union uses about 22% ETBE in E10 gasoline as it does not require major modification in the fuel distribution infrastructure (ETBE, European biofuels). The other ethers are methyl tertiary-butyl ether (MTBE), ETBE, tertiary-amyl methyl ether (TAME), and tertiary-amyl ethyl ether (TAEE). It is reported that MTBE could contaminate groundwater and hence be risk of cancer (MTBE, American Cancer Society). However, these issues are beyond the scope of this book as our focus is toward the discussion about more suitable biofuels for internal combustion engines.
Future Fuels
Published in Arumugam S. Ramadhas, Alternative Fuels for Transportation, 2016
The Reid vapor pressure, a measure for the volatility of a fuel, is very low for ethanol. This indicates a slow evaporation, which has the advantage of lower evaporative emissions and reduces the risk of explosions. Without aids, engines using ethanol cannot be started at temperatures below 20°C. The most cost-effective aid is the blending of ethanol with a small proportion of a volatile fuel such as gasoline. Thus, various mixtures of bioethanol with gasoline or diesel fuels have been used. Bioethanol has been extensively tested in light duty FFV as E85G. Ethyl tertiary butyl ether (ETBE) is also used in blends of 10–15% with gasoline to enhance its octane rating and reduce emissions. Blends of gasoline with up to 22% ethanol can be used in spark ignition engines without any material or operating problems. Blends of diesel with up to 15% ethanol do not introduce any technical engine problems and require no ignition improver (www.eubia.org/212.0.html).
Biodegradation of diisopropyl ether, ethyl tert-butyl ether, and other fuel oxygenates by Mycolicibacterium sp. strain CH28
Published in Bioremediation Journal, 2022
Ingrid Zsilinszky, Balázs Fehér, István Kiss, Attila Komóczi, Péter Gyula, Zsolt Szabó
Rapid ETBE consumption was measured in all systems inoculated with strain CH28: 200 mg l−1 ETBE was degraded to under 0.5 mg l−1 in 36 hours (Figure 5a). However, ETBE degradation by strain CH28 was incomplete since we could detect the temporary accumulation of TBA both in BA1 (106 mg l−1) and BA3 systems (58 mg l−1) (Figure 5b). TBA was biodegraded in the BA1 microcosms in 14 days by the indigenous TBA-degrading microflora of the groundwater samples. The same amount of TBA was depleted in less than 3 days in the BA3 systems, which proved that strain T4 was a potent degrader of TBA. Degradation of ETBE was not observed in the abiotic, biotic, and biostimulated microcosms. Similarly, no significant loss in the concentration of ETBE could be detected in the BA2 systems which were inoculated only with strain T4.
Energy efficient global optimisation of reactive dividing wall distillation column
Published in Indian Chemical Engineer, 2020
Jasdeep Kaur, Tinkle Chugh, Vikas K. Sangal
Conventionally, ETBE has been produced in a reactor from the reaction between isobutene and ethanol and the mixture is separated in a distillation column for the purification. At given temperature and pressure conditions, the side reactions are neglected and the reaction kinetics for the reaction given in Equation (2) are adopted from [11].