Liquid-Liquid Equilibrium for 1-Butanol-Water-KF and 1-Butanol-Water-K_2CO_3 Systems

KF or K2CO3 was added into the 1-butanol-water system and two phases were formed： water-rich phase （water phase） and 1-butanol-rich phase （1-butanol phase）. The liquid liquid equilibrium （LLE） data for 1-butanol-water-KF and 1-butanol-water-K2CO3 systems were measured at 25℃ and showed that 1-butanol phase contained negligible salt and water phase contained negligible 1-butanol when the concentrations of KF and K2CO3 in the water phase were equal to or higher than 27.11% and 31.68% , respectively. Thus water could be separated efficiently from 1-butanol-water by adding KF or K2CO3 into the system. A theoretical calculation of LLE data was calculated by using the Pitzer theory to get water activity in the water phase, and by the models, such as the Wilson, NRTL or the UNIQUAC for the 1-butanol phase. For 1-hutanol-water-KF system, the experimental data were found in good agreement with the calculated results by using Pitzer theory and Wilson equa tion, while for 1-butanol-water-K2CO3 system, the experimental data were found in good agreement with the calculated results by using Pitzer theory and UNIQUAC eauation.

Pervaporation Separation of Butanol-Water Mixtures Using Polydimethylsiloxane/Ceramic Composite Membrane

Pervaporation has attracted considerable interest owing to its potential application in recovering biobutanol from biomass acetone-butanol-ethanol (ABE) fermentation broth. In this study, butanol was recovered from its aqueous solution using a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS)/ceramic composite pervaporation membrane. The effects of operating temperature, feed concentration, feed flow rate and operating time on the membrane pervaporation performance were investigated. It was found that with the increase of temperature or butanol concentration in the feed, the total flux through the membrane increased while the separation factor decreased slightly. As the feed flow rate increased, the total flux increased gradually while the separation factor changed little. At 40°C and 1% (by mass) butanol in the feed, the total flux and separation factor of the membrane reached 457.4 g·m?2·h?1 and 26.1, respectively. The membrane with high flux is suitable for recovering butanol from ABE fermentation broth.

Preparation of active carbons from corn stalk for butanol vapor adsorption

Active carbons(ACs) were prepared through chemical activation of biochar from whole corn stalk(WCS)and corn stalk pith(CSP) at varying temperatures using potassium hydroxide as the activating agent. ACs were characterized via pore structural analysis and scanning electron microscopy(SEM). These adsorbents were then assessed for their adsorption capacity for butanol vapor. It was found that WCS activated at900 °C for 1 h(WCS-900) had optimal butanol adsorption characteristics. The BET surface area and total pore volume of the WCS-900 were 2330 m2/g and 1.29 cm3/g, respectively. The dynamic adsorption capacity of butanol vapor was 410.0 mg/g, a 185.1% increase compared to charcoal-based commercial AC(143.8 mg/g).

Preparation of Butyl Chloride from Butanol and Hydrochloric Acid Using Ionic Liquids as Catalyst

The catalytic performance of some quaternary ammonium salts for the liquid phase reaction of butanol and hydrochloric acid at different conditions was studied experimentally and compared with the traditional catalyst （ZnCl2）. The organic ammonium catalysts investigated include ionic liquids N-butyl-N-methyl imidazolium fluoborate （[BMIM][BF4]） and N-butyl-N-methylimidazolium chloride （[BMIM]Cl） as well as hydrochloric salts of N-methylimidazol （[HMIM]Cl）, pyridine （[HPy]Cl） and triethylamine （[HEt3N]Cl）. It is shown that the intrinsic catalytic performance of all organic ammonium salts except [HEt3N]Cl is slightly superior to ZnCl2, while the selectivity of butyl chloride is nearly at the same level around 96%. The conversion of butanol increases slightly with temperature and the catalyst amount added while the variation of selectivity is not obvious. Based on the recycle experiments, the ionic liquids as catalyst for the reaction of butanol and hydrochloric acid can be used more than 5 times, which suggests great potential of using ionic liquids as novel catalyst for such reactions.

Zeolite-assisted etherification of glycerol with butanol for biodiesel oxygenated additives production

This research was focused on the valorisation of glycerol,exploring the feasibility of an efficient route for oxygenated additives production based on its etherification with bio-butanol.A home-made BEA zeolite sample with a tuneable acidity has been proposed as the catalytic system,being tested in a stirred reactor under different etherification conditions.Although a reaction temperature as high as 200℃resulted to be beneficial in terms of glycerol conversion(-90%),only by operating at milder conditions the product selectivity to glycerol-ethers can be better controlled,in order to obtain a bio-fuel complying with the requirements for mixing with fossil diesel or biodiesel,without any need of purification from large amount of by-products.A comprehensive identification of all the compounds formed during the reaction was performed by a GC-MS analysis,on the basis of the complex network of consecutive and parallel reaction paths leading not only to the desired ethers,but also to many side products not detected in similar acid-catalyzed reactions in liquid phase and not available in the most used mass-spectra libraries.

Biosynthesis of Unsaturated Fatty Acids via Mortierella Isabellina Cultivated in a Medium Containing Butanol

Mortierella isabellina was found to accumulate large amounts of unsaturated fatty acids when it was grown in a medium containing butanol(5 g/L) and yeast extract(10 g/L) and cultivated at 25 ℃ for 5 d during which additional feeding butanol of 2 g/L was fed after being cultivated for 48 h . The resultant mycelial lipids accounted for 40 1% of the dry mycelia, while about 34% of butanol in the medium was converted. The mycelial lipids contained four kinds of unsaturated fatty acids, i.e ., palmitoleic(4 9%), oleic(54 1%), linoleic(10 4%) and linolenic(5 4%) acids. Those accounted for 74 8% of the total fatty acids. The effects of the culture conditions, such as cultivation temperature, initial pH of the medium and additional feeding butanol in the course of cultivation, on the production of mycelial lipids by M. isabellina were studied.

Conceptual design of an extractive distillation process for the separation of azeotropic mixture of n-butanol-isobutanol-water

In many chemical processes, large amounts of wastewater containing butanol and isobutanol are produced.Given that n-butanol-isobutanol-water can form triple azeotrope, high-purity butanol cannot be recovered from the wastewater by ordinary distillation. To economically and effectively recover butanol from this kind of wastewater, 1,4-butanediol is selected as an extractant to break the formation of the azeotropes, and a doubleeffect extractive distillation process is proposed. The conceptual design of the proposed process is accomplished based on process simulation. With the proposed process, the purity of recovered butanol and water is greater than 99.99 wt%. In comparison with the conventional azeotropic distillation process, economic analysis shows that the operating cost of the proposed process is lower: when the capacity of wastewater treatment is 100 t·h^(-1), the total operating cost decreases by 5.385 ×10~6 USD per year, and the total annual cost of the new process decreases by 5.249 ×10~6 USD per year. In addition, in the extractive distillation system, variable effects on separation purities and cost are more complex than those in the ordinary distillation system. The method and steps to optimize the key variables of the extractive distillation system are also discussed in this paper and can provide reference for similar studies.

Experimental investigation on combustion and unregulated emission characteristics of butanol-isomer/gasoline blends

Effects of butanol isomers on characteristics of combustion and emission were studied on PFI SI engine. Experiments were operated under the condition of 3 and 5 bar brake mean effective pressure (BMEP) engine loads and different equivalence ratios (φ=0.83-1.25) with engine speed of 1200 r/min using blends made of 70 vol.% gasoline and 30 vol.% butanol isomers (N30, S30, I30 and T30). The results indicated that compared with gasoline, all butanol isomer blends have higher cylinder pressure. N30 has the highest and most advanced peak pressure, and T30 shows a higher brake specific fuel consumption (BSFC) and lower brake thermal efficiency (BTE). N30 presents a lower UHC emissions and I30 has slightly higher CO emissions than other blends. For unregulated emissions, compared with gasoline, butanol isomer blends have higher acetaldehyde, and N30 produces a higher emission of 1,3-butadiene than other blends. A reduction in benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylene (BTEX) has been found with butanol isomer blends.

Synthesis of HTPB based PU-PS IPN Membrane for Pervaporation Recovery of Butanol

Hydroxyl terminated polybutadiene（HTPB） based polyurethane（PU）-polystyrene（PS） interpenetrating polymer network（IPN） was prepared and characterized by FTIR, TGA, WCA, swelling experiments, and SEM. The IPN was used for pervaporation（PV） recovery of butanol. Both the permeation flux and separation factor increased with feed temperature, and both water and butanol fluxes increased with feed concentration while no obvious effect of concentration on separation factor was found. Through the formation of IPN structure, the total flux of HTPB based PU increased greatly with the decrease of separation factor. At the feed temperature of 60 °C, the IPN membrane obtained a total flux of 613.3 g/m^2 h with a separation factor of 6.15.

Synthesis and applications of mesoporous Cu-Zn-Al_2O_3 catalyst for dehydrogenation of 2-butanol

A series of mesoporous Cu-Zn-Al2O3 materials have been synthesized at ambient temperature and their structure was characterized by XRD, N2 physical adsorption and TPR techniques. Their catalytic applications for the dehydrogenation of 2-butanol to methyl ethyl ketone （MEK） were evaluated in a fixed-bed flow reactor at atmospheric pressure. It is demonstrated from the XRD patterns that both the as-synthesized samples and calcined samples have the typical XRD patterns of meso-structured materials and the results of N20 chemical adsorption showed that Cu was embedded in the framework of the mesoporous materials and homogeneously dispersed in the mesoporous Cu-Zn-Al2O3 materials. The catalytic activity of 2-butanol dehydrogenation was varied in the order of CZA（10） 〈 CZA（CP） 〈 CZA（20） 〈 CZA（30）; while the selectivity of MEK was increased in the order of CZA（CP） 〈 CZA（10） 〈 CZA（20） 〈CZA（30）.

Experimental assessment of performance and exhaust emission characteristics of a diesel engine fuelled with Punnai biodiesel/butanol fuel blends

This work examines the effect of butanol as an oxygenated additive to lower carbon monoxide,smoke,nitrogen oxide and hydrocarbon emissions and to improve the performance aspects of Calophyllum inophyllum(Punnai)biodiesel.Singlecylinder,oil-cooled compression ignition engines are employed in this work.Neat Punnai biodiesel(P100)is blended with butanol at 10%and 20%by volume and labelled as B10 P90 and B20 P80,respectively.Methanol and alkaline catalyst(KOH)were used for the transesterification process for biodiesel production.The transesterification technique yielded 88%biodiesel from raw Punnai oil.Engine tests resulted in lower CO,smoke,NO_x and HC emissions when fuelled with both butanol blends when compared to P100.In addition,BSFC(brake-specific fuel consumption)reduced and BTE(brake thermal effciency)increased with the inclusion of butanol blends(B10 and B20)to neat Punnai biodiesel.

Towards a green bulk-scale biobutanol from bioethanol upgrading

Biobutanol is attracting increasingly interest as a source of renewable energy and biofuels because of its many advantages over bioethanol that include higher energy density, fuel efficiency, and reduced engine damages. Currently, there is a growing interest in producing biobutanol from bioethanol, in view of the tremendous potential benefits of this transformation for the bulk production of biobutanol in a target specific manner. This perspective paper describes recent progress for the ethanol to butanol process. The different catalysts, including homogeneous and heterogeneous catalytic systems, for ethanol to butanol are outlined and compared, and the key issues and requirements for future developments are highlighted. A major challenge for further development and application of ethanol to butanol process is to find an optimal balance between different catalytic functions and to suppress the formation of side products that has plagued most catalytic bioethanol upgrading systems. (C) 2016 Science Press and Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Published by Elsevier B. V. and Science Press. All rights reserved.

Electronic and steric factors for enhanced selective synthesis of 2‐ethyl‐1‐hexanol in the Ir‐complex‐catalyzed Guerbet reaction of 1‐butanol

1‐Butanol is a potential bio‐based fermentation product obtained from cellulosic biomass.As a value‐added chemical,2‐ethyl‐1‐hexanol(2‐EH)can be produced by Guerbet conversion from 1‐butanol.This work reports the enhanced catalytic Guerbet reaction of 1‐butanol to 2‐EH by a series of Cp^(*)Ir complexes(Cp^(*):1,2,3,4,5‐pentamethylcyclopenta‐1,3‐diene)coordinated to bipyridine‐type ligands bearing an ortho‐hydroxypyridine group with an electron‐donating group and a Cl−anion.The catalytic activity of the Cp^(*)Ir complex increased by increasing the electron density of the bipyridine ligand when functionalized with the para‐NMe2 and ortho‐hydroxypyridine groups.A record turnover number of 14047 was attained.A mechanistic study indicated that the steric effect of the ethyl group on theα‐C of 2‐ethylhexanal(2‐EHA)and the conjugation effect of C=C–C=O in 2‐ethylhex‐2‐enal(2‐EEA)benefits the high selectivity of 2‐EH from 1‐butanol by inhibiting the cross‐aldol reaction of 2‐EHA and 2‐EEA with butyraldehyde.Nuclear magnetic resonance study revealed the formation of a carbonyl group in the bipyridine‐type ligand via the reaction of the Cp^(*)Ir complex with KOH.

One-step Synthesis of n-Butanol from Ethanol Condensation over Alumina-supported Metal Catalysts

One-step synthesis of n-butanol from bimolecular condensation of ethanol was firstlyachieved over nickel supported gamma alumina catalyst. A mechanism of dehydration path for thegrowth of carbon chain by eliminating a hydroxy group from one ethanol molecule with a α-H ofother ethanol molecule rather than aldol condensation was verified.

Effect of butanol on flotation separation of quartz from hematite with N-dodecyl ethylenediamine

In order to investigate the effect of butanol on quartz flotation when N-dodecyl ethylenediamine(ND)was used as collector, single mineral flotation and artificial mixed mineral(hematite and quartz were mixed at a mass ratio of 3:2) separation were conducted in the laboratory. Experimental results indicated that addition of butanol could improve the collecting performance of ND on quartz and enhance the floatability of quartz. Best flotation recovery of quartz was obtained when butanol was mixed with ND at a mass ratio of 1:1. Moreover, the molecular structure of alcohols had a significant effect on mineral recovery. Best separation efficiency could be obtained when tert-butanol was added as it had the largest cross-sectional area. Zeta potential measurements indicated that alcohols could strengthen electrostatic adsorption between quartz and collector. Molecular dynamic simulations revealed that co-adsorption of alcohols along with ND had taken place on the quartz surface, and ND/tert-butyl combinations were more easily absorbed on the quartz surface.

Synthesis of PDMS-PS IPN Pervaporation Membrane for Pervaporation Recovery of Butanol

Polydimethylsiloxane(PDMS)-polystyrene(PS) interpenetrating polymer network(IPN) was prepared and characterized by FTIR, TGA, WCA, swelling experiments, and SEM. The IPN was used for pervaporation(PV) recovery of butanol. Both the permeation flux and separation factor increased with feed temperature, and both water and butanol fluxes increased with feed concentration, while no obvious effect of concentration on separation factor was found. Through the formation of IPN structure, the total flux of PDMS-PS IPN pervaporation membrane increased greatly with the decrease of separation factor. At the feed temperature of 60 °C, the IPN membrane obtained a total flux of 920.3 g/m2h with a separation factor of 9.5.

Catalytic upgrading of ethanol to butanol over a binary catalytic system of FeNiO_x and LiOH

Catalytic conversion of ethanol to butanol is vital to bridge the gap between huge amounts of ethanol production,the limited blending ratio of ethanol in gasoline,and the outstanding performance of butanol.In this work,a highly active binary catalytic system of FeNiOx and LiOH was developed for upgrading of ethanol to butanol.After 24 h reaction at 493 K,the selectivity to butanol reached 71% with>90% high carbon alcohols at 28% ethanol conversion,which was comparable to the performance of some noble metal homogeneous catalysts.

Performance Characteristics of n-Butanol-Diesel Fuel Blend Fired in a Turbo-Charged Compression Ignition Engine

In this study, n-butanol-diesel blends were burned in a turbo-charged, direct injection diesel engine where the brake thermal efficiency, (BTE) or brake specific fuel consumption, (BSFC) was compared with that of ethanol-diesel or methanol-diesel blends in another study by other authors. The test blends used were B5, B10 and B20 (where B5 is 5% n-butanol by volume and 95% diesel fuel-DF). In this study, the BTE was higher and the BSFC improved more than in the other study. Because of improved BTE with increasing brake mean effective pressure, BMEP, the BSFC reduced, however the increased shared volume of n-butanol in DF increased BSFC. Adding n-butanol in DF slightly derated the torque, brake power output with increasing speed, and caused a fall in exhaust gas temperatures, (EGT) which improves the volumetric efficiency and reduces compression work. Therefore, a small-shared volume of n-butanol in DF fired in a turbo-charged diesel engine performs better in terms of BTE and BSFC than that of ethanol or methanol blending in DF.

Phospholipase D antagonist 1-butanol inhibited the mobilization of triacylglycerol during seed germination in Arabidopsis

Storage oil breakdown plays an important role in the life cycle of many plants by providing the carbon skeletons that support seedling growth immediately following germination. 1-Butanol, a specific inhibitor of phospholipase D(PLD)-dependent production of the signalling molecule phosphatidic acid(PA), inhibited Arabidopsis seed germination. N-Acylethanolamines(NAEs), which have been shown to inhibits PLDa1 activity, have no effect on seed germination. However, mobilization profile of triacylglycerols(TAG) that induced by each compound has not been reported. To gain deeper insights into the mode of mobilization of TAG during NAE 12:0 or 1-butanol treatment, we conducted a detailed comparative analysis of the effect of NAE 12:0, DMSO, 1-butanol and tert-butanol on Arabidopsis seed germination and fatty acid composition, tert-butanol and DMSO served as the corresponding controls treatment respectively. Our data show that 1-butanol, but not the inactive tert-butanol isomer, inhibited Arabidopsis seed germination, which is accompanied by a with retardation of the mobilization of triacylglycerols(TAG). In contrast, NAE 12:0 did not affect mobilization of TAG, nor did it significantly delay seed germination as monitored by radicle and cotyledon emergence. 1-Butanol induced RNA degradation in seeds and seedlings. We speculate that the large-scale degradation of RNA under the induction of 1-butanol may lead to abnormal gene expression in genes necessary for seed germination, including the genes needed for the mobilization of oil bodies, and thus cause a delay of seed germination. To the best of our knowledge, we report for the first time that 1-butanol delays the mobilization of TAG.

Underlying mechanism of protection from hypoxic injury seen with n-butanol extract of Potentilla anserine L. in hippocampal neurons

The alcohol and n-butanol extract of Potentilla anserine L. significantly protects myocardium from acute ischemic injury. However, its effects on rat hippocampal neurons and the mechanism of protection remain unclear. In this study, primary cultured hippocampal neurons from neonatal rats were incubated in 95% N2 and 5% CO2 for 4 hours. Results indicated that hypoxic injury decreased the viability of neurons, increased the expression levels of caspase-9 and caspase-3 mRNA, as well as cytochrome c, Caspase-9, and Caspase-3 protein. Pretreatment with 0.25, 0.062 5, 0.015 6 mg/mL n-butanol extract of Potentilla anserine L. led to a significant increase in cell viability. Expression levels of caspase-9 and caspase-3 mRNA, as well as cytochrome c, Caspase-9, and Caspase-3 protein, were attenuated. The neuroprotective effect of n-butanol extract of Potentilla anserine L. was equivalent to tanshinone IIA. Our data suggest that the n-butanol extract of Potentilla anserine L. could protect primary hippocampal neurons from hypoxic injury by deactivating mitochondrial cell death.