Butanol-Powered Car Stops In Urbana
Published: May. 25, 2007
Urbana -- Ohio environmental scientist and inventor David E. Ramey and his son, Steve Ramey, met briefly with University of Illinois Professor Hans Blaschek, director of the newly created Center for Advanced BioEnergy Research, and two of Blaschek's graduate students, Zhen Shi and Eric Jones, on campus on Sunday.
Ramey was driving from his home near Columbus, Ohio, to the 19th annual meeting of the National Agricultural Biotechnology Council on the campus of the University of South Dakota in Brooking, S.D. What makes his trip unusual is that he is driving a 1992 Buick Park Avenue powered entirely with 100 percent butanol, a four-carbon alcohol. In 2005, he drove the same vehicle 10,000 miles across the U.S. using pure butanol as fuel and averaged 24 miles per gallon. Ramey will speak at the Agricultural Biotechnology meeting on Wednesday, May 23.
After 6 years of work on a grant from the U.S. Department of Energy, Ramey says he has developed an economical method of making butanol. "This demonstration-test-drive was the culmination of my work to demonstrate to my colleagues that butanol definitely works as a superior alternative fuel to ethanol," said Ramey. "I can derive more energy from a bushel of corn, which costs less to process, and which replaces gasoline gallon-for- gallon as has been shown by this trip from coast to coast."
The father and son butanol team were heading west with 50 gallons of butanol stored in large red plastic containers in the trunk of their Buick. Because Butanol has a much higher boiling point than ethanol or water, the elder Ramey said he felt perfectly safe driving with his fuel secured away in his trunk. "It very slow to burn so even if we did have a mishap, I'm not worried about fire," he said. The Rameys estimate the current cost of producing a gallon of industrial grade butanol as a chemical is about $3.35 per gallon with a worldwide market of 350 million gallons per year. The market demand is expected to increase dramatically if "green" butanol is produced economically from biomass.
Blaschek is a U of I professor of food microbiology and is assistant dean of the College of Agriculture, Consumer and Environmental Science (ACES) Office of Research. The Blaschek Laboratory is interested in the genetic manipulation of the Acetone-Butanol-Ethanol (ABE) fermentation microorganism Clostridium beijerinckii for biotechnology application in the fermentation industry. In addition to molecular-based approaches, the laboratory has been involved in downstream bioprocessing and membrane-based recovery of ABE products.
Blaschek also serves as the Chief Scientific Officer of Advanced Biofuels, Inc. of Chicago, Ill. Advanced Biofuels is a privately held company focused on development and commercialization of next-generation production platforms for alternative fuels produced from domestic renewable sources. The company is focused on commercial scale-up of a proprietary, continuous process for production of butanol at commercial yield using an advanced approach to Acetone-Butanol-Ethanol (ABE) fermentation.
The process is currently being optimized at a proprietary facility in Champaign, Urbana under the guidance of a technical/ scientific team comprised of international leaders in anaerobic metabolism and solvent production. The company is funded by IllinoisVENTURES, LLC -- an early-stage technology investment firm focused on research-derived companies in information technologies, physical sciences and life sciences, with a particular emphasis on those deriving from research conducted at the U of I and other regional research institutions and federal laboratories.
Ramey stressed that the car he was driving that was powered by butanol was not modified. "You can put butanol in any car right now without modification and you're ready to go. It burns very cleanly and we recorded 24 miles per gallon on our last cross-country trip," he said.
"We're not putting down ethanol as a good potential fuel," added his son, Steve Ramey, who said he assists his father with his research but also works a variety of other jobs to earn a living. "But today's cars cannot use more than 10 percent ethanol without modification. With butanol, it's a 100 percent replacement."
More information about the Rameys' research and the butanol-powered car can be found at their website, http:www.butanol.com .
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