New European biofuels for diesel engines

The World is strongly dependent on crude oil for its transport needs. In order to diminish this dependence, we need to introduce clean, CO2-efficient, secure and affordable transportation fuels. The development of innovative biofuel technologies will help to cover significantly (up to 25% in Europe) road transport fuel needs. Biofuels production of 33 billion litres in 2004 is small compared to 1200 billion litres of gasoline produced annually worldwide. The current production of liquid biofuels in the EU 25 is about 2 Mtoe, which is less than 1% of the market. Recent assessments have concluded that the 2010 targets, 18 Mtoe used in the transport sector, are unlikely to be achieved. There can be three basic possibilities of accomplishing this target: i) use of alcohols (first of all ethanol) and their mixing with petrol; ii) use of fatty acids esters (methyl or ethyl) of vegetable oils and their mixing with diesel fuel, iii) use of synthetic hydrocarbons of the synthetic gas coming from biomass resources and eventually their mixing with other ,,classical" hydrocarbons. This paper presents a novel way of utilizing alcohols as fuels for a diesel engine. It is proposed to use heavy alcohols as a mix with conventional diesel fuel. The possibility to use a mix of butanol (as heavy alcohol) with conventional diesel fuel is demonstrated. Butanol has some key advantages over ethanol and light hydrocarbons (petrol), including higher energy content and better transport characteristics. Moreover, butanol is hydrophobic, so a new logistic infrastructure is not necessary. This paper demonstrates that a diesel-butanol fuel mixture is supplied to a diesel engine without any problems. A consumption of proposed biofuel mixture from +35% to -35% of typical diesel fuel depends on many factors not only on fuel energy density. A near-term effort of BP Biofuels and DuPont to develop and commercialize biobutanol is well-known. Here, it is proposed a new technological process combining electricity generation in fuel cells with electrolysis and a production of butanol from ethanol, which gives an opportunity to reduce today,'s over production of ethanol without a necessary change of existing infrastructure.