Any chemists/oil-professionals in here?

ntg · 12 Jul 2011 at 15:05

A very long shot but here goes..

I'm looking a bit into the biofuels market and trying to get my head around some products, mainly:

ethanol
isobutanol
n-butanol

I get the differences between ethanol and isobutanol, I'm not quite sure if there are any difference between isobutanol and n-butanol. My interest lies with respect to what kind of products they can be used in. It seems like they are used in different specialty chemical markets, is that correct or is there an overlap?

Now, I understand they can all be created either from oil or from renewable material, any ideas on the costs of either process? How much a gallon of isobutanol costs when made from cracking and when made from renewable biomass?

Also, any ideas on the selling prices of isobutanol/n-butanol? I can find prices for ethanol but not the others.

Cheers

Tefal · 12 Jul 2011 at 15:26

They're just different isomers of each other.

deusexlumina · 12 Jul 2011 at 15:35

Been a while since i've looked at chemistry but maybe i can help. If you're looking at fuels you should choose the one with the greates £/Joule ratio. To find out the energy released through combustion you should look at the chemical enthalpies of the reactants and products (subtract products from reactants and you have the energy released in the reaction). Although tbh this has probably been done a million times by people on the interwebs so a quick google may help.

what do you mean by the "type of products they can be used in"? you're correct in that they will have specific uses, each tailored to the physical arrangement of each molecule.

iirc they are not direct isomers of each other tefal, but i may well be wrong, doesn't ethanol have two carbon atoms whereas butanol has 4? as a said its been a while since i did chemsitry, so i may be wrong.

Again, speculation, but i think the n refers to an integer number of carbon molecules off of the butanol molecule, so it can vary. For fuel you're better off sticking to small-medium sized carbon chains though, as they are less viscous, combust more readily and i'd imagine less expensive.

Cracking can be done at home, need a catalyst though -ive fogotten which one - it may be iron oxide but again a quick google will help - but your products will be on a small scale tbh and not suitable for a business scale. Still, may be good for experimenting

hope this helped, and apologies if some of the information ive provided is clearly wrong.

Tefal · 12 Jul 2011 at 15:37

I fancy boys said:
iirc they are not direct isomers of each other tefal, but i may well be wrong, doesn't ethanol have two carbon atoms whereas butanal has 4? as a said its been a while since i did chemsitry, so i may be wrong.

yeah i just meant n-butanol and isobutanol.

didn't see he'd mentioned ethanol too

but lets face it anyone who's burning ethanol instead of drinking it is a madman

but i think the n refers to an integer number of carbon molecules off of the butanol molecule, so it can vary.

nah n-butanol is just the standard chain, with no branches. isobutanol is the branched version.

Same molecular formula just different structure.

ntg · 12 Jul 2011 at 15:49

Thanks for the replies, really useful.

Any ideas about costs? I'm more interested in market production costs from the refiners etc. Not home production

I'm trying to gauge the cost difference between renewable butanol and oil based butanol.

shroomz · 12 Jul 2011 at 15:50

n-butanol is the standard, straight-chain molecule for butanol which is CH3-CH2-CH2-CH3 with one of the hydrogens somewhere along the chain being replaced with an alcohol or -OH group. The molecule looks like this o-o-o-o

isobutanol has the structure CH3-CH(CH3)-CH3 (it also has the OH group somewhere along the molecule) where the (CH3) is a side branch. The molecule will look like a T, with a carbon at each corner as well as in the middle.

The two have different physical properties because of this structural difference, you *can* look at it as the straight chain molecule packing more closely and therefore have a higher melting/boiling point.

Tefal · 12 Jul 2011 at 15:58

kgi said:
Thanks for the replies, really useful.

Any ideas about costs? I'm more interested in market production costs from the refiners etc. Not home production

I'm trying to gauge the cost difference between renewable butanol and oil based butanol.

what exactly do you want to use it for?

Could you not use butane or anything else instead (depending on the intended use butane/iso butane may provide a cheaper alternative).

or are you looking to start trading the stuff?

edit a quick glance o nsigma says

http://www.sigmaaldrich.com/catalog...ALDRICH&N5=SEARCH_CONCAT_PNO|BRAND_KEY&F=SPEC

http://www.sigmaaldrich.com/catalog...ALDRICH&N5=SEARCH_CONCAT_PNO|BRAND_KEY&F=SPEC

Not sure if "natural" means from bio fuels but it seems considerably more expensive than the other.

Bill101 · 12 Jul 2011 at 16:18

kgi said:
Thanks for the replies, really useful.

Any ideas about costs?

It depends on when the tax man gets his hands on it

alx · 12 Jul 2011 at 16:21

kgi said:
Thanks for the replies, really useful.

Any ideas about costs? I'm more interested in market production costs from the refiners etc. Not home production

I'm trying to gauge the cost difference between renewable butanol and oil based butanol.

An (oil) refinery wouldn't produce butanol as a standard product, butane (both iso- and n-) yes but not butanol.

You need a seperate reaction to create it, I believe the most common way to produce it is as a by product of biomass fermentation.

According to this wiki link the cost is about $4 per gallon for butanol.

I'm not sure exactly how the process of producing butanol works, but I imagine you would end up with a mixture of n- and iso-butanol. This would be difficult/costly to seperate, it's almost certainly much easier just to use a mixture of both isomers.

ntg · 12 Jul 2011 at 16:37

shroomz said:
The two have different physical properties because of this structural difference, you *can* look at it as the straight chain molecule packing more closely and therefore have a higher melting/boiling point.

Does that mean that you can't make the same products with both of them? for example I know isobutanol is used in tires/rubbers (as isobutene), can n-butanol be used for the same thing? Sorry if I appear thick but as far as chemistry goes I know nothing.

Tefal said:
what exactly do you want to use it for?

Could you not use butane or anything else instead (depending on the intended use butane/iso butane may provide a cheaper alternative).

or are you looking to start trading the stuff?

edit a quick glance o nsigma says

http://www.sigmaaldrich.com/catalog...ALDRICH&N5=SEARCH_CONCAT_PNO|BRAND_KEY&F=SPEC

http://www.sigmaaldrich.com/catalog...ALDRICH&N5=SEARCH_CONCAT_PNO|BRAND_KEY&F=SPEC

Not sure if "natural" means from bio fuels but it seems considerably more expensive than the other.

I'm not going to use it for anything, im looking into companies that are producing the stuff and trying to understand their economics. I can't see any pricing info on your links but I guess it's because I use IE6 at the moment and something may not appear right on the page. Although I would need bulk prices (as per tonne) which may differ from whatever is in that site. Nonetheless it will give me the margin between the oil-based butanol and biofuel butanol.

alx said:
An (oil) refinery wouldn't produce butanol as a standard product, butane (both iso- and n-) yes but not butanol.

You need a seperate reaction to create it, I believe the most common way to produce it is as a by product of biomass fermentation.

According to this wiki link the cost is about $4 per gallon for butanol.

I'm not sure exactly how the process of producing butanol works, but I imagine you would end up with a mixture of n- and iso-butanol. This would be difficult/costly to seperate, it's almost certainly much easier just to use a mixture of both isomers.

That price point is interesting but there is no source on wikipedia about it. Hmm..
thanks for the clarification on what an oil refinery produces, I admit I'm not clued up on the differences.

many thanks for all response so far, overwhelming to see so many specialists involved in such an obscure (for me!) subject.

Tefal · 12 Jul 2011 at 16:44

kgi said:
I'm not going to use it for anything, im looking into companies that are producing the stuff and trying to understand their economics. I can't see any pricing info on your links but I guess it's because I use IE6 at the moment and something may not appear right on the page. Although I would need bulk prices (as per tonne) which may differ from whatever is in that site. Nonetheless it will give me the margin between the oil-based butanol and biofuel butanol.

yeah sigma is more 99% lab grade stuff so very expensive, wasn't sure what you were planning on doign with it when i posted.

Can I ask exactly what you're looking for/why, if it's a question you've been asked etc then the original phrasing will be more helpful in answering.

other wise your best bet is seriously to email/write a letter to a bio fuel company/their pr place, obviously you'll get a bias response but you'll get a lot of good solid info, probbaly not a huge deal on the financial specifics but enough to give you a solid grounding to look further.

It's amazing how often people over look the very simple "Just ask them" approach on these things

ntg · 12 Jul 2011 at 16:49

Tefal said:
yeah sigma is more 99% lab grade stuff so very expensive, wasn't sure what you were planning on doign with it when i posted.

Can I ask exactly what you're looking for/why, if it's a question you've been asked etc then the original phrasing will be more helpful in answering.

other wise your best bet is seriously to email/write a letter to a bio fuel company/their pr place, obviously you'll get a bias response but you'll get a lot of good solid info, probbaly not a huge deal on the financial specifics but enough to give you a solid grounding to look further.

It's amazing how often people over look the very simple "Just ask them" approach on these things

The reason I'm looking for this is because I'm trying to understand how competitive is renewable butanol with its oil-derived equivalent. There are many biofuel companies out there that claim they have a cheap process to produce the stuff but when it comes to price points everybody keeps quiet.

It's hard to find any solid info on pricing, hence I'm shooting questions around. I've tried the avenue of asking them direct but because most of the renewable biofuel companies (if not all) are start-ups they are very hesitant in giving out any info relevant to pricing. On the refinery side they are so big that no one really answers these kind of things.

iraiguana · 12 Jul 2011 at 20:07

Do you have access to science journals at all?

There are many major reviews which will cover modern production techniques for both refineries and the competitive of the biofuel routes. These will be available to you if you are a student or have access to higher education sources.

These reviews typically do not specify the exact costs, but operate on energy of the process as the cost will include other variables which may be location specific, whilst the overall process energy consumption would eliminate any of these local variables.

ntg · 12 Jul 2011 at 23:25

iraiguana said:
Do you have access to science journals at all?

There are many major reviews which will cover modern production techniques for both refineries and the competitive of the biofuel routes. These will be available to you if you are a student or have access to higher education sources.

These reviews typically do not specify the exact costs, but operate on energy of the process as the cost will include other variables which may be location specific, whilst the overall process energy consumption would eliminate any of these local variables.

No, no access to journals I'm afraid. Even so, the energy consumption for the production of either product wouldn't be such a good guide. I know what you mean but there are so many other variable costs associated with production (as well as by-products that discount this cost) that it could be misleading.

iraiguana · 13 Jul 2011 at 12:03

The questions you are asking require very large detail answers as the exact process/source of starting material for your biomass will determine how efficient and effective the process is.

Any science reviews will factor in yield, conversion, heating, purification/separation and capital investment required for the process. The price point is almost irrelevant as you are should be interested in the cost of production and the amount people are willing to pay for it in the market.

I am a little unsure why you need this amount of information as it would easily cover 100+ page review to be in any suitable detail to answer the questions you have asked.

iraiguana · 13 Jul 2011 at 12:11

http://www.mediafire.com/?b4s83e5lqyr9vsp

Have a look at this pdf for some general information on the field technology. A more specific question I can answer, but this is just too big of a topic I am afraid. Maybe someone specifically working with the companies involved could help, but I suspect they would not like to risk it.

ntg · 13 Jul 2011 at 12:28

iraiguana said:
The questions you are asking require very large detail answers as the exact process/source of starting material for your biomass will determine how efficient and effective the process is.

Any science reviews will factor in yield, conversion, heating, purification/separation and capital investment required for the process. The price point is almost irrelevant as you are should be interested in the cost of production and the amount people are willing to pay for it in the market.

I am a little unsure why you need this amount of information as it would easily cover 100+ page review to be in any suitable detail to answer the questions you have asked.

Many thanks for the link in your other post, I'll have a look at that.

Any science review I've seen so far was focused on the elements you mentioned bar the capital costs, therefore getting a cost base is/was very hard. The price points are largely arbitrary as you correctly mention, however there are established prices for oil-based products which -combined with the info I already have- can give me a sense on whether a particular company has a competitive product or not.

In short, I have some information and I'm missing others, therefore I'm trying to piece the puzzle together, that's why a price point of one company makes a lot of sense to me but wouldn't make sense in itself.

As for the size of the material that's needed, if it was only a couple hundred pages to give me the info I need I'd be happy!! Unfortunately information seems to be scattered far and wide, and many times contradictory or out of date. Couple with my lack of understanding of chemistry it's easy for me to make mistakes in my comprehension.

Many thanks again for the input guys and girls, much appreciated.