Celtic Renewables Ltd, a spin-out from Edinburgh Napier University, has developed a sustainable biofuel, biobutanol, as a direct replacement for gas and diesel fuels, reports Innovators Magazine.
The award-winning company has developed a process to manufacture biobutanol from the draft left over from making whiskey. The draft contains sugar-rich barley kernels which have been soaked in water to facilitate the fermentation process that goes into creating the country’s world-famous whiskey.
The resulting pot ale is a coppery colored yeasty liquid that is considered a waste product of the whiskey making process. Each year, in Scotland alone, the malt whiskey industry produces nearly 750,000 tons of draft and over 2.0 billion liters (528,344 gallons) of pot ale.
Martin Tangney, the president of Celtic Renewables and director of Edinburgh Napier University’s Biofuel Research Centre, approached Tullibardine distillery in Perthshire with his company’s idea to make use of the waste product from the distillery. Tullibardine was happy to cut its 300,000 pounds ($386,370.00) yearly costs in disposing of this industrial waste.
Tullibardine distillery manager John Torrance says that right from the start, he could see the potential in using the waste from the whiskey-making process in creating a sustainable, environmentally friendly fuel, adding this could turn into “a multi-billion-pound global business with the opportunity to turn transport green.”
“We’re a forward thinking distillery and we’re happy to support what promises to be a groundbreaking first for renewable energy, for transport and for the Scottish whiskey industry alike,” Torrence added.
Celtic Renewables biobutanol making process involves using bacterial fermentation to produce the biofuel. Credit for the process goes to the UK, where the process was first developed at the beginning of the last century to produce acetone and explosives used in World War I.
That process was phased out in the 1960s after getting too much competition from the petrochemical industry, according to the company’s website.
Using both the draft and pot ale, the company mixes, treats and ferments the two by-products, creating a broth. The broth is then separated into its solid and liquid components. The liquid is then distilled to extract solvents, leaving an effluent while the solids are dried to produce a high-grade animal feed.
Basically, the products created from the fermentation of draft and pot ale are butanol, acetone, ethanol, animal feed and gases (hydrogen and carbon dioxide). With further innovation, even more, can be done with further treatment of the effluent, producing further value for the business.
With 9.0 million pounds in funding assistance from the Scottish government and other investors, the Edinburgh-based company plans on opening a factory in 2018 capable of producing 500,000 liters (132,086 gallons) of biobutanol annually.
