Renewable engine fuel and method of producing same
The present invention provides high-octane fuel, and a method of producing same. These fuels may be formulated to have a wide range of octane values and energy, and may effectively be used to replace 100 LL aviation fuel (known as AvGas), as well as high-octane, rocket, diesel, turbine engine fuels, as well as two-cycle, spark-ignited engine fuels.
1. A process for the production of a 100 octane aviation fuel from a biomass, comprising the steps of: (a) fermenting a biomass with a microorganism of clostridium acetolbutylicum or a mutagen thereof to produce a mixture of metabolites comprising acetone and butanol; (b) separating the acetone from butanol and any ethanol or other solvents in the mixture by fractional distillation; (c) dimerizing a portion of resultant acetone from step (b) to form isopentane; (d) trimerizing another portion of the acetone from step (b) to form mesitylene, and (e) mixing the mesitylene with the isopentane from steps (c) and (d), whereby to form high octane aviation fuel.
2. The process of claim 1 , wherein the biomass is selected from the group consisting of sugars, celluloses, lignins, starches, and lignocelluloses.
3. The process of claim 1 , wherein the biomass is selected from the group consisting of hard woods, grasses, corn stover, sorghum, corn fiber, and oat hulls, which are pretreated with enzymes or strong acids to break any hemicellulose chains into their sugar monomers.
4. The process of claim 1 , wherein the fermentation in step (a) is conducted in an anaerobic reactor in the absence of oxygen.
5. The process of claim 1 , wherein metabolites of acetone, butanol and ethanol from step (a) are stripped from the fermentation when concentrations thereof over 2 to 3 wt % are obtained, whereby to avoid poisoning of the organism clostridium acetolbutylicum or mutagens thereof.
6. The process of claim 1 , wherein the trimerizing of acetone in step (d) is carried out in the gas phase by reacting acetone with sulfuric or phosphoric acid at elevated temperatures.
7. The process of claim 1 , wherein the dimerization of acetone in step (c) is carried out in a catalytic reaction to yield isopentane.
8. The process of claim 7 , wherein the dimerization of acetone in step (c) is carried out in a gas phase catalytic reaction.
9. The process of claim 1 , wherein the trimerizing of acetone in step (d) is carried out in the presence of a catalyst.
10. A process for the production of an aviation fuel from a biomass, comprising the steps of: (a) fermenting a biomass with a microorganism of clostridium acetolbutylicum or a mutagen thereof to produce a mixture of metabolites comprising acetone and butanol; (b) separating the acetone from butanol and any ethanol or other solvents in the mixture by fractional distillation; (c) trimerizing a portion of the acetone from step (b) to form mesitylene, and (d) mixing the mesitylene with isopentane.
11. The process of claim 10 , wherein the fermentation in step (a) is conducted in an anaerobic reactor in the absence of oxygen.
12. The process of claim 10 , wherein the trimerizing of acetone in step (c) is carried out in the gas phase by reacting acetone with sulfuric or phosphoric acid.
13. The process of claim 1 , wherein the trimerizing of acetone in step (c) is carried out in the presence of a catalyst.