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New Bio-Fuel
Anything that will allow my car to run cleaner, make more power, cheaper and not sending as much money overseas is good in my book.
C&P
A catalytic process for converting fructose (a common plant sugar, cheaper than sucrose) to a liquid fuel, 2,5-dimethylfuran (DMF), is faster and less energy-intensive than the principal ethanol production process. Plus, the fuel has a 40% higher energy density (ethanol can be considered partially oxidized ethane), etc.
The text of the article requires a subscription to Nature, but the abstract, Figures and Tables, and SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION are free: Production of dimethylfuran for liquid fuels from biomass-derived carbohydrates : Abstract : Nature
Summaries can also be viewed here:
Engineers develop higher-energy liquid-transportation fuel from sugar
news@nature
Beyond Ethanol: Synthetic fuel offers promising alternative: Science News Online, June 23, 2007
Ethanol production from corn is rather energy inefficient. The DMF production is much better:
"It's a very efficient process," says [UW Graduate student George] Huber. "The fuel produced contains 90 percent of the energy found in the carbohydrate and hydrogen feed. If you look at a carbohydrate source such as corn, our new process has the potential to creates twice the energy as is created in using corn to make ethanol."
About 67 percent of the energy required to make ethanol is consumed in fermenting and distilling corn. As a result, ethanol production creates 1.1 units of energy for every unit of energy consumed. In the UW-Madison process, the desired alkanes spontaneously separate from water. No additional heating or distillation is required. The result is the creation of 2.2 units of energy for every unit of energy consumed in energy production.”
ScienceDaily: Green Diesel: New Process Makes Liquid Transportation Fuel From Plants
Basic data from CRC Handbook for DMF: C6H8O, melting point -62.8 °C, boiling point 93.5 °C, density 0.8883 g/cc at 20 °C.
More DMF info here: Chemical Data Sheet
So, energy savings vs. ethanol (ethanol production is subsidized by taxpayers to the tune of $0.50 per gallon), so lower taxes!
High energy density & easy to store & transport. Maybe can forget about hydrogen for vehicles?
Improve peoples' health by reducing the sweetener in soda (high-fructose corn syrup)!
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