Techno-economic analysis of butanol biosynthesis

Upgrading bio-butanol in the presence of copper-hydrotalcite derived mixed oxides: From batch to continuous flow catalytic process highly selective to butyl butyrate

“…In this regard, the catalytic upgrading of bio-alcohols to give intermediates, solvents and bio-fuels appears highly attractive, also considering their increasing availability. In fact, in these last years a significant progress has been done in the production of n-butanol (BuOH) via biomass fermentation adopting the acetone-butanol-ethanol (ABE) process, thus more and more reducing the main bottlenecks of this process, such as the use of expensive feedstocks, the achieved low substrate conversion and low product concentration and the overall process complexity [3,4]. Moreover, BuOH can be obtained by the Guerbet condensation of bio-ethanol through a catalytic process that is attracting increasing interest, being very-low-carbon footprint [5,6].…”