The new biofuel: It’s whisky in a car
Edinburgh Napier University in Scotland has filed a patent for a new biofuel made from whisky by-products, which it says can be used in ordinary cars, without any special adaption needed.
The fuel process has been developed over the last two years by Edinburgh Napier’s Biofuel Research Center. As part of its research, the center was provided with samples of whisky distilling by-products from Diageo’s Glenkinchie distillery. The £260,000 research project was funded by Scottish Enterprise’s Proof of Concept program.
The Edinburgh Napier Biofuel research team focused on the £4 billion whisky industry as a ripe resource for developing biobutanol – the next generation of biofuel which gives 30% more output power than ethanol. It uses the two main by-products of the whisky 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.
With 1,600 million liters of pot ale and 187,000 tons of draff produced by the malt whisky industry annually, there is real potential for this biofuel. Unlike ethanol, the nature of this biofuel means that 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 plans 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.
“The EU has declared that biofuels should account for 10% of total fuel sales by 2020. We’re committed to finding new, innovative renewable energy sources, said Martin Tangney, the director of the Edinburgh Napier Biofuel Research Center. “While some energy companies are growing crops specifically to generate biofuel, we are investigating excess materials such as whisky by-products to develop them. This is a more environmentally sustainable option and potentially offers new revenue on the back of one Scotland’s biggest industries. We’ve worked with some of the country’s leading whisky producers to develop the process.”
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