Butanol fuel may be used as a fuel in an internal combustion engine. It is in several ways more similar to gasoline than ethanol is. Butanol has been demonstrated to work in some vehicles designed for use with gasoline without any modification. It can be produced from biomass as well as fossil fuels. Some call this biofuel biobutanol to reflect its origin, although it has the same chemical properties as butanol produced from petroleum. Butanol from biomass is called biobutanol. It can be used in unmodified gasoline engines. Butanol production from biomass and agricultural byproducts could be more efficient (i.e. unit engine motive power delivered per unit solar energy consumed) than ethanol or methanol production. Biobutanol can be made entirely with solar energy, from algae (called Solalgal Fuel) or diatoms.
Biobutanol can be produced by fermentation of biomass by the A.B.E. process. The process uses the bacterium Clostridium acetobutylicum, also known as the Weizmann organism. It was Chaim Weizmann who first used this bacterium for the production of acetone from starch (with the main use of acetone being the making of Cordite) in 1916. The butanol was a by-product of this fermentation (twice as much butanol was produced). The process also creates a recoverable amount of H2 and a number of other by-products: acetic, lactic and propionic acids, isopropanol and ethanol.
Biobutanol can be made entirely with solar energy, from algae (called Solalgal Fuel) or diatoms. DuPont and BP plan to make biobutanol the first product of their joint effort to develop, produce, and market next-generation biofuels. In Europe the Swiss company Butalco is developing genetically modified yeasts for the production of biobutanol from cellulosic materials. (Full article...)