Butanol pushed as biofuel answer

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. -- Ethanol might reign as the king of biofuels, but several companies are betting a close cousin may overcome some of its shortcomings.

Butanol has traditionally been used as paint thinner, cleaner and adhesive, but as a fuel additive it contains more energy than ethanol and could be blended into existing cars at higher percentages.

And unlike ethanol, butanol does not eat away at pipes, so it doesn't need to be shipped by truck. That could help the nation meet its renewable fuels standard of 36 billion gallons of biofuels to be blended into gasoline by 2022, said Andy Aden, a research engineer at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

Chemical maker DuPont Co. and oil giant BP PLC are working on a pilot plant in the United Kingdom that will produce butanol from such feedstocks as wheat, corn, barley and rye. The two companies have also teamed with British Sugar to develop a commercial-scale ethanol plant that eventually would be converted to produce butanol once the process is perfected.

DuPont vice president John Ranieri said recently the pilot plant should be operational by next year and the companies are working to make butanol cost competitive with grain ethanol by 2010.

"Once we are commercial with biobutanol we intend to combine our technologies to make biobutanol from nonfood feedstocks," Ranieri said in a statement.

Aden said butanol as a fuel holds promise, but the technology is still in a low level of development.

"Despite what companies are saying, it's still a fair ways off," he said.

Butanol has nowhere near the political support of ethanol and it still costs more to produce, but several companies are trying to develop technology that may make butanol cost competitive.

Gevo Inc., an Englewood, Colo.-based company, said it's solving that problem with a form of E. coli bacteria. Butanol producers to date have used Clostridium acetobutylicum bacteria to munch on a variety of sugary feedstocks to produce acetone, butanol and ethanol.

By substituting an E. coli derivative developed by scientists at University of California in Los Angeles, Gevo is able to produce only isobutanol, said Pat Gruber, the company's chief executive.

The bacteria can be fed corn, sugar cane or cellulosic plant waste.

"That bug eats most anything thrown at it, so it's already shown it can do cellulosics," Gruber said. "All I need is to have some low-cost cellulosic supply available."

Gruber said the process is already underway at a small 20,000-gallon-per-year pilot plant in Colorado. The next step is to partner with ethanol plant designer ICM Inc. to build a larger scale facility at ICM's biofuels research center in St. Joseph, Mo.

Gevo's business model is to take existing ethanol plants and retrofit them into butanol plants, a transformation Gruber estimates would cost between 25 cents and 30 cents per gallon in capital.

"All we're doing is changing the bug, adding some skids of equipment. Voila. It is now a butanol plant," he said.

Aden said the concept is feasible, but butanol faces several challenges if production costs can be reduced.

More scientific research is needed to develop new bacteria strains and enhance yields, and engineers will have to address some challenges. Butanol is highly toxic to the bacteria that breaks it down, so companies are going to have to move beyond simple distillation methods to extract the substance.

But Aden sees butanol eventually providing another choice for the consumer who pulls up to the pump.

"A lot of it is going to hinge on the success of research over the next five years," he said.

Gruber believes butanol could change the biofuels market.

Removing water from isobutanol produces isobutalene, which can then be converted into iso-octane which can be made into gasoline, diesel and jet fuel. So a Midwest biorefinery that now makes ethanol could one-day deliver homegrown gasoline right to the pump, he said.

"Do you think that would excite people?" Gruber asked. "I think it would."