Filed under: Emerging Technologies
Don't forget the other alcohol: Cobalt Biofuels raises $25M for biobutanol production
With all the negative publicity about corn ethanol lately there hasn't been much discussion about another longer chain alcohol, specifically butanol. Like other alcohols, it makes a good motor fuel and it can also be synthesized from biomass. Mountainview, CA-based Cobalt Biofuels has raised a $25 million round of venture funding toward its goal of commercializing biobutanol. The company has developed a microbe-based process for producing butanol from non-food biomass. The new funding will be used to expand an existing test production facility into a pilot production plant. The pilot plant will have a capacity of 35,000 gallons of bioutanol per year. One reason butanol has an advantage over ethanol is in terms of energy density. Butanol has 90 percent of the energy per gallon compared to gasoline, while ethanol is only about 70 percent. Butanol is also less susceptible to the corrosion problems of ethanol, so it can be shipped in the same pipelines as gas making distribution more economical. Thanks to Sebastian T. for the tip![Source: Cobalt Biofuels]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Mike Z 7:58PM (10/28/2008)
It is worth noting that one of the problems with Butanol is that at least up until this point, it has been impossible to produce it with a high proof. Therefore a lot of energy is required to distill the alcohol from the water.
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1985 Gripen 10:20PM (10/28/2008)
I thought this sounded very familiar (I'm a butanol proponent so I took notice). This was already reported by ABG eight days ago:
http://www.autobloggreen.com/2008/10/21/cobalt-biofuels-gets-25-million-for-biobutanol/
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Michael Hippenhammer 5:45AM (10/29/2008)
It's about time some one comes to there senses. Bio B or just Butanol makes much more sense than ethanol.
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