Bioethanol, as a possible source of n-butanol

Cséfalvay, Edit and Aranyosi, Anett (2021) Bioethanol, as a possible source of n-butanol. KÖRFORGÁSOS GAZDASÁG ÉS KÖRNYEZETVÉDELEM / CIRCULAR ECONOMY AND ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION, 5 (1). pp. 5-17. ISSN 2560-1024

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Abstract

A novel synthesis method was proposed to produce n-butanol from bioethanol. The key step is the chemical dehydration of ethanol to ethene. Then ethene is further converted via Wacker synthesis,followed by commercial steps, such as aldol condensation and catalytic hydrogenation to form n-butanol. Environmental sustainability assessment of the synthesis method was executed: E-factor was calculated to be 0.8914, atom efficiency to 58.8%. Recently introduced sustainability metric – the Ethanol Equivalent – was used to calculate the carbon-atom and energy requirements of the process. A total 2.66 million tonnes(mt) ethanol would be required to cover the synthesis of 0.67 mt n-butanol (used in EU-28 in 2015), which represents about the half of the amount of ethanol produced in the same year. Sustainability value of resource replacement was calculated to be 5.15 (>1), which indicates a sustainable production. Sustainability value of the fate of the waste showed an unsustainable value of 0.49 (<1), due to the relatively low overall yield of the reaction (63%). Sustainability index was calculated as a non-linear combination of the latter two indicators, thus resulted in a close to sustainable value of 0.45. It was clearly demonstrated that these metrics are suitable for environmental assessment of chemical synthesis, and the results pointed out the importance of high conversion and selectivity of reaction steps, and the weakness of waste handling.

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