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Scottish researchers developed a new super biofuel made from whiskey by-products to power cars. The fuel process has been developed over the last two years by Edinburgh Napier University’s Biofuel Research Centre.
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Diageo’s Glenkinchie Distillery provided samples of whiskey distilling by-products to the Biofuel Research Centre. The 260,000 pounds research project was funded by Scottish Enterprise’s ‘Proof of Concept’ program.
The Edinburgh, Scotland-based Edinburgh Napier University has filed a patent for the new biofuel, which can be used in ordinary cars without any special adaptions.
“The European Union has declared that biofuels should account for 10 percent of total fuel sales by 2020. We’re committed to finding new, innovative renewable energy sources. This potentially offers new revenue on the back of one Scotland’s biggest industries. We’ve worked with some of the country’s leading whiskey producers to develop the process,” said Martin Tangney, Director of the Biofuel Research Centre at Edinburgh Napier University.
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The Edinburgh Napier team focused on the 4 billion pounds whiskey industry as a ripe resource for developing biobutanol, the next generation of biofuel which gives 30 percent more output power than ethanol.
“It uses the two main by-products of the whiskey production process – ‘pot ale’, the liquid from the copper stills, and ‘draff’, the spent grains, as the basis for producing the butanol that can then be used as fuel,” the researchers said in a statement.
With 1,600 million liters of pot ale and 187,000 tons of draff produced by the malt whiskey industry annually, there is real potential for bio-fuel to be available at local garage forecourts alongside traditional fuels. Unlike ethanol, the nature of the innovative bio-fuel means ordinary cars could use the more powerful fuel instead of traditional petrol.
The product can also be used to make other green renewable bio-chemicals, such as acetone. The University now intends to create a spin-out company to take the new fuel to market and leverage the commercial opportunity, in the bid to make it available at petrol pumps.
“I am delighted to see Edinburgh Napier University once again display its expertise in this field by bringing this biofuel to market. I support the development and use of sustainable biofuels. This innovative use of waste products demonstrates a new sustainable option for the biofuel industry, while also supporting the economic and environmental objectives of the Scottish Government's new Zero Waste Plan,” said Jim Mather, Minister for Enterprise, Energy and Tourism.
“In these challenging economic times we need to play to our strengths and take advantage of the low carbon opportunities of the future. It's exactly this type of innovation that will help sustain economic recovery and deliver future sustainable economic growth,” added Mather.
The technology for developing bio-fuel from whiskey was inspired from a 100 year old process, created by Chaim Weizmann, a Jewish refugee chemist in Manchester who studied the butanol fermentation initially as part of a program to produce rubber synthetically. The process was then used in explosives manufacture and helped win both World War I and World War II.
