Car History 4U - Environmentally Friendly / Green Biofuels

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3.2 Biofuels

Environmentally Friendly / Green Biofuels

3.2 Biofuels

A biofuel is a gas, solid or liquid fuel that has been produced from a recently living organism or its metabolic by-product.
Biofuels used in vehicles are usually in either a liquid or gas form.
Sources of biofuels include sugar cane/beet, a range of vegetable oils, algae, animal fats and sewage.
The two main “first-generation” biofuels have been bio-ethanol and bio-diesel. These were made mainly from vegetable oils, starch and sugar.
More recently “second-generation” biofuels are being produced using “biomass to liquid” technology, including biomethanol, biohydrogen, HTU diesel and Fischer-Tropsch diesel.
Early users of bio-ethanol have included Nickolaus Otto (for combustion engines he built in the 1860s) and Henry Ford (originally for his famous Model T car in the early 1900s).
In the 1890s Rudolf Diesel conceived his diesel engine to run on peanut oil.

Biodiesel can be produced from any fat or oil using a process called “transesterification”.
Vegetable oil could be used in older indirect injection system diesel engines when operated in hotter climates.
Nowadays vegetable oil has to be processed into biodiesel before it can be used in a modern diesel engine.
It is the most commonly used biofuel in Europe.
It is currently mainly manufactured from vegetable oils and has an energy content that is about 10% lower than that of petroleum diesel.
EN 14214 is the common international standard for biodiesel. A "B" factor is used to indicate the level of biodiesel in a fuel mixture. B40 indicating the fuel contains 40% biodiesel, etc.
Biodiesel can be used as B100 or blended with petroleum diesel in most modern diesel engines.
In 2006 Soybean and rapeseed oils accounted for about 90% of all biodiesel.
Other sources include, but are not limited to, sunflower, mustard, canola, palm oil, hemp, algae and jatropha.

Ethanol is ethyl alcohol and it is the world’s most commonly used biofuel. Bio-ethanol is typically produced from crops such as sugar cane/beet, wheat and corn.
Note: Ethanol can also be produced from other sources, such as petroleum and coal.
In 2007 countries with bio-ethanol programmes include Brazil, China, Columbia, Sweden and the USA.
Subject to the suitability of the engine it can be used as an alternative to, or blended with, unleaded petrol. An “E” number is used to indicate the petrol to ethanol ratio.
E85, for example, representing a mixture of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent petrol.
Ethanol, with water content of not more than 1%, can be blended with petrol in varying ratios.
E10, sometimes called gasohol, can be used in the engines of most modern cars.
In February 2006 E20 became the standard ethanol-petrol mixture sold in Brazil.
In 2007 Brazil was the world’s largest producer of ethanol, which it derives from sugar cane.
Cars can be made to run on E100 but problems have been encountered starting the engine when the temperature is below 15 degrees C (59 degrees F).
Ethanol contains about 27% less energy than petrol (84,000 BTUs per US gallon compared to 115,000 BTUs for petrol).
Cars running on ethanol currently use more fuel per mile than those running on petrol. Differences of up to 15% have been reported. Check this %.
Fuel economy is expected to improve significantly as higher compression engines designed to run only on E100 become available.

Butanol is an alcohol fuel and can be produced from the same crops as ethanol; mainly sugar cane/beet, wheat and corn. It can also be produced from fossil fuels.
Butanol contains about 4.3% less energy than petrol (110,000 BTUs per US gallon compared to 115,000 BTUs for petrol).
It is less corrosive than ethanol.
In 2006 no production vehicles were known to be approved for use with 100% butanol. Information on butanol-petrol blends/ratios, level of production, usage, etc. required.

Methanol is methyl alcohol. It is frequently referred to as wood alcohol.
It is currently (2007) more cost effective to derive methanol from the natural gas methane.
It can also be produced from light petroleum products and coal.
When produced from a biomass it is called biomethanol.
Methanol is much less flammable than petrol and this has limited its use as fuel for internal combustion engines.
Methanol contains about 45% less energy than petrol (63,000 BTUs per US gallon compared to 115,000 BTUs for petrol).
Methanol has been used as a fuel for fuel cells. See Green Cars, Section 8.7.
Methanol is corrosive to certain metals, including aluminium.
Pure methanol has been used in certain racing cars since the 1960s, including the American Indianapolis 500 event up to the end of the 2005 season. It has also been used in drag racers.

Note: All figures are in US gallons per acre (4,840 square yards or about 4,050 square metres).
Corn (18), Soybean (48), Peanuts (113), Rapeseed (127), Jatropha (202), Oil Palm (635) and Algae (10,000).
Algae, which has a natural oil content of more than 50%, produces over 200 times more oil per acre than soybeans.
One report indicated that if America relied soley upon soybean to provide all it’s current transportation and heating needs, the crop would occupy an area equal to twice the size of the country.