Drinking and driving may not go together, but scientists in (where else?) Scotland believe they have come up with a way of using alcohol for the fuel tank.
Whisky GlassResearchers from Edinburgh Napier University’s Biofuel Research Centre say they have successfully come up with a next-generation butanol biofuel made from whisky by-products, called biobutanol.
If you have a passion for fine bourbon or Scotch, though, don’t worry – this new biofuel is made not from the drink itself but from its by-products, so no drinkable spirits are wasted.
The researchers’ formula mixes pot ale, a liquid which comes from the copper stills used in distilleries, with ‘draff’, the grains left over from whisky production. Every year the whisky distilling industry creates 1,600 million litres of pot ale and nearly 190,000 tonnes of draff.
The two-year, £260,000 project received funding from Scottish Enterprise. For its research, the centre received samples of whisky distilling by-products from Edinburgh-based Diageo’s Glenkinchie Distillery.
Butanol fuels are reported to be up to 25 per cent more efficient than their better-known ethanol cousins. And, unlike ethanol, cars could use biobutanol in their fuel tanks in place of ordinary petrol.
The university’s Professor Martin Tangney commented: “While some companies are growing crops to generate biofuel, we are investigating excess materials such as whisky by-products to develop them.”
The EU has said that biofuels should make up 10% of total fuel sales by 2020. Napier University is now working on bringing its new product to the fuel pumps.
