March 2, 2015 – The Highway Patrol pulls you over and the officer asks if you’ve been drinking. “No sir. My car has.”
That’s not quite as ridiculous as it sounds. A company in Scotland, Celtic Renewables, has found a way to convert waste from whisky distilleries into fuel for cars and jet engines. The biofuel is called bio-butanol and it is as efficient as petrol in driving a combustible engine according to Mark Simmers, CEO of Celtic Renewables.
Mr. Simmers told CNBC.com that the stuff left over after malt brewing, called draff, and the pot ale left over after distillation are mixed and fermented to create a “broth”. Further distillation produces acetone, butanol and ethanol. It can be used in unmodified engines and can be mixed with both diesel and biodiesel fuel.
The technique is not limited to whisky residue but can be used with other spirits, beer and other agricultural waste. Celtic Renewables hopes to have the first plant up and in production in 2016.
The research was led by Professor Martin Tangney at Edinburgh Napier University’s Biofuel Research Center.
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