Thursday, June 21, 2007

Sweet new fuel for your car

A synthetic form of diesel called DMF (2,5-dimethylfuran) can now be produced from the sugar in plants . Ethanol is often the end product of energy from biomass, but ethanol as a transportation fuel has many drawbacks. Ethanol takes lots of energy just to create, especially in the distillation process. DMF takes only one-third the energy for distillation. Ethanol cannot be shipped via pipelines because it combines with water; DMF does not have this problem. Ethanol is not very energy dense, DMF packs more power in a gallon.
The sugar to DMF process is still experimental and DMF will need to be certified as safe for human contact.
DMF looks like a promising alternative to create a transportation fuel from biomass.

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