Talk:Butanol

"Butanol when consumed in an internal combustion engine yields no SOX, NOX or carbon monoxide all environmentally harmful byproducts of combustion. CO2 is the combustion byproduct of butanol, and is considered environmentally 'green'."

This would be true of any pure hydrocarbon. As far as I know butanol doesn't have major advantages in purification or elimination of sulfur and nitrogen contaminants.

It’s only available as a PDF Download (at least as per my current on a mobile phone late night “I don’t need sleep, i need answers” searching :3 ), BUT the paper:

“Additive Response and Intake Valve Deposit Control of Isobutanol - Gasoline Blends”

Was a VERY interesting read.

“SUMMARY:

In the past decade, government mandates have resulted in the development of a significant market for automotive fuels produced from renewable sources. Fuel blends containing low concentrations of ethanol have been the readily available choice for providing renewable content in gasoline fuels. Oxygenates blended into fuels are known to affect vehicle driveability performance the customer experiences.

Butamax has been developing technology that will allow for the commercial production of isobutanol from renewable sources. In addition to high energy density, high octane, and good material compatibility, isobutanol has low vapor pressure impact when blended with gasoline and lower water solubility. Butamax plans to introduce isobutanol-gasoline blends initially at 16 vol% (Bu16). This represents the same oxygen concentration in the blend as ethanol at 10 vol% (E10).

Butamax has sponsored a significant number of studies exploring the effects of isobutanol-gasoline blends on such diverse topics as permeation emissions, tailpipe and evaporative emissions, driveability and gasoline additives, as well as infrastructure materials such as metals, elastomers, plastics and resins. The company conducted fleet tests accumu lating about 80 million miles with 1.5 million miles under controlled conditions.

This report represents a summary of extensive testing of antioxidant and corrosion inhibiting additives, as well as intake valve deposit control additives and low-temperature valve sticking tests.

• The results confirm that isobutanol-gasoline blends:
  • can be stabilized adequately with the addition of common antioxidants
  • may be treated successfully against iron corrosion by the addition of common corrosion inhibitors
  • provide better keep-clean performance than E10 for representative deposit control additives (DCAs)
  • provide similar performance trends for DCAs compared to E10 blends, ie., lower deposits in E10 for a pass low-temperature valve-sticking tests with Top Tier DCA treatments for four different DCAs representing particular DCA correspond to lower deposits for that DCA in Bu16 three additive technology typer”

It Also Mentions:

“ANTIOXIDANTS

Two typical antioxidants, AO-37 a hindered phenolic type and AO-22 a p-phenylene diamine type, were tested in isobutanol-light catalytically-cracked naphtha blends. Table 1 shows the results of accelerated oxidation stability tests using the ASTM D525 standard method and ASTM D873 oxidation stability of aviation fuels (potential residue method). The light catalytically-cracked naphtha was a refinery component having a high olefin content that was treated with alumina to remove any antioxidants added at the refinery. It had poor stability and did not respond to the addition of hindered phenolic antioxidant (mixes A and B). The cat-naphtha responded to amine type antioxidant (mix C) that just met the 240-minute minimum specification for gasoline (D4814). Isobutanol blends at 12 wt% responded well to both types of antioxidants and the combination of both antioxidants (mixes D, E and F). The D873 test was performed by aging the fuel sample at 100°C under a pressurized oxygen atmosphere for a period of 240 minutes. In the D873 test, fuels with D525 induction times less than the aging period (240 minutes) generally become heavily oxidized and exhibit gum formation on the order of 1000 mg. Results of these tests show that mixture C is at the borderline of oxidation stability while the isobutanol-naphtha blends are stable. In summary, isobutanol-gasoline blends can be stabilized adequately with the addition of common antioxidants.”