乙醇终结者商业化在望

    我们在2007年曾对丁醇进行过报道，这种生物燃料拥有解决乙醇很多问题的潜力。从那时起，英国石油公司（BP）这样的业内厂商一直在努力寻找办法以具有成本效益的方式向这种“先进生物燃料”过渡，现在一项科研突破可能最终使这一切成为现实。

    丁醇在很多方面都胜过乙醇：在汽油中添加乙醇会降低燃油里程，但丁醇可以提供跟汽油几乎等量的能量，意味着消费者加油的次数可以少一些；丁醇也不会像乙醇那样对汽车发动机造成损伤，因此可以将更多的丁醇混入汽油当中；另外，丁醇不会因为杂质水的存在而跟汽油分离，炼油厂可以直接进行混合操作，而乙醇需要跟汽油分开来运输，然后在加油站附近进行混合。

    然而，美国已经有200家乙醇工厂建成投产，在这种情况下，乙醇的市场地位根深蒂固。如果要将那些工厂改造成利用玉米生产丁醇而不是乙醇，它的单位成本大约为1,500万美元。从理论上说，将乙醇转化为丁醇更加便宜，但业界一直在寻找一种化学催化剂，以使这个过程更加高效。直到目前，这个转化过程产生的丁醇太少，而需要分离出来的杂质却过多。英国布里斯托尔大学（University of Bristol）的化学教授邓肯•沃斯说，这个过程“当然太过昂贵，无法成为一种具有竞争力的燃料选择。”

    沃斯在美国新奥尔良举行的美国化学学会（American Chemical Society）年会上展示了自己的研究成果（由英国石油公司资助），他发现一族新的催化剂可以在实验室中转化出95%的丁醇。沃斯说：“它们有希望以高产量、高选择性和大规模生产的方式将乙醇转化成丁醇。”

    我们仍然要过一段时间才能开始在加油站看到利用沃斯的催化剂生产出的丁醇——仅仅是设计和建造转化设施以及在实验工厂对新燃料进行规模化测试就需要耗费数年的时间。沃斯估计，如果接下来的事情一切顺利，这种工艺需要6年时间才能实现商品化。

    不过到那时候，我们不就是在拿一种用粮食制成的燃料替换另一种燃料吗，那不是从我们后代的口中抢粮食吗？沃斯表示：“这些催化剂的美妙之处在于，它们可以应用于各种来源（通过生物技术利用各种作物制成）的乙醇。”科学家们正在研究将玉米秸秆、木材、树叶以及柳枝稷作为提取非粮生物燃料的来源。（财富中文网）

    译者：王灿均

    In 2007 we reported on biobutanol, a biofuel with the potential to solve many of the problems associated with ethanol. Since then, industry players like BP have been seeking ways to make a cost-efficient transition to the "advanced biofuel," and now a scientific breakthrough might finally make that possible.

    Butanol trumps ethanol in several ways: Adding ethanol to gasoline reduces fuel mileage, but butanol packs almost as much energy as gas, meaning fewer fill-ups. Butanol also doesn't damage car engines like ethanol, so more of it can be blended into gas. And because butanol doesn't separate from gasoline in the presence of water, it can be blended right at the refinery, while ethanol has to be shipped separately from gas and blended closer to the filling station.

    But with 200 plants already up and running in the U.S., ethanol is firmly entrenched. Modifying those plants to produce butanol from corn instead of ethanol costs roughly $15 million for each facility. Converting ethanol into butanol could be cheaper, theoretically, but the industry has been looking for a chemical catalyst capable of doing it efficiently. Until now, the conversion process produced too little butanol and too many unwanted products that had to be separated out. The process was "certainly too expensive to be competitive as a fuel molecule," says Duncan Wass, a professor of chemistry at the University of Bristol in the U.K.

    At the annual American Chemical Society meeting in New Orleans, Wass presented research -- funded by BP (BP) -- on a family of new catalysts that produced 95% butanol in the lab. "They hold the prospect of being able to convert ethanol to butanol in high yield, high selectivity and at large-scale," Wass says.

    It will still be some time before we'll start seeing butanol produced with Wass's catalysts at the pump -- it takes several years just to design, build, and test new fuels at scale in a pilot plant. Wass estimates it will be six years to commercialization if the next steps go off without a hitch.

    But at that point, won't we just be trading one food-based fuel for another, taking corn out of the mouths of babes? Says Wass, "The beauty of these catalysts is that they can use all sources of ethanol biologically derived from any crop." Corn stalks, wood, leaves, and switch grass are all being studied as sources of non-food biofuel.