OBLONG
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Ethanol synthesis
Hi, does anyone know of a way to synthesize ethanol other than fermentation or ethene hydration? Thanks
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Metacelsus
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There's a thread here on the hydrolysis of ethyl acetate, but ethyl acetate is itself synthesized using ethanol, so this is only useful if you can
easily get ethyl acetate but not ethanol.
Also, there was a recent paper in the news on ethanol synthesis by electrochemical reduction of carbon dioxide at a specialized copper-carbon
nanocatalyst.
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Texium
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Thread Moved
18-10-2016 at 10:42 |
Fidelmios
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It seems to be like fermentation is the best method. Maybe buy drinkable ethanol and dry with a molecular sieve.
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hissingnoise
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Buying cheap, near-anhydrous ETOH on ebay is the simplest sol.?
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careysub
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Use those nanofactories engineered by genetic programming: i.e. yeast. They are tough to beat, all they need is sugar as a reagent (and oxygen) and a
small amount of nutrient. High gravity yeast are available that make 22% ethanol.
But there is this:
"High-Selectivity Electrochemical Conversion of CO2 to Ethanol using a Copper Nanoparticle/N-Doped Graphene Electrode", Song et al, ChemistrySelect
2016, 1, 1–8.
Attachment: song2016.pdf (1.9MB)
This file has been downloaded 719 times
About that which we cannot speak, we must remain silent.
-Wittgenstein
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That word does not exist in any language
It will never be uttered by a human mouth
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NitratedKittens
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I agree with careysub, yeasts have had several million years to perfect the synthesis of ethanol from sugar. 
Ferment.
Distill.
Dry.
Done!
Basket of kittens for you ........BOOM
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careysub
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It appears that the origin of Saccharomyces cerevisiae can be traced back with comparative genetic analysis at least to ~150 million years ago. Given
that a yeast "generation" is 30 minutes, that is on the order of a trillion generations to get it right. (See PLOS paper).
Of course yeast does not really make ethanol as a target, it is the waste product of its anaerobic metabolism path. Oddly, it has a much more
efficient aerobic path that does not produce ethanol, but only uses that when its access to sugars is low. Its seems to have evolved for a sugar-rich
environment, which we are happy to provide.
Attachment: journal.pbio.1002220.PDF (2.6MB)
This file has been downloaded 348 times
About that which we cannot speak, we must remain silent.
-Wittgenstein
Some things can never be spoken
Some things cannot be pronounced
That word does not exist in any language
It will never be uttered by a human mouth
- The Talking Heads
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aga
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Ethanol production has been rather well documented, inclluding how to distill/dry it to 99.9%
UTFSE, the SE being google, search phrase :-
site:sciencemadness.org Ethanol
Please report back with your success at making 100% ethanol - perhaps you can find a way nobody else did in the past few hundred years.
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XeonTheMGPony
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I been buying bioflame alcohol fuel as it is just Ethyl Acetate, ethanol, and some sort of contaminant, So distill, reflux over sodium hydroxide for
an hour you end up with pure Ethanol!
I just spend the last 2 days doing just that, as I all so want to make Glacial acetic acid. So that rout you get ethanol, Sodium acetate, so two very
useful substances.
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Tsjerk
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Quote: Originally posted by careysub  |
It appears that the origin of Saccharomyces cerevisiae can be traced back with comparative genetic analysis at least to ~150 million years ago. Given
that a yeast "generation" is 30 minutes, that is on the order of a trillion generations to get it right. (See PLOS paper).
Of course yeast does not really make ethanol as a target, it is the waste product of its anaerobic metabolism path. Oddly, it has a much more
efficient aerobic path that does not produce ethanol, but only uses that when its access to sugars is low. Its seems to have evolved for a sugar-rich
environment, which we are happy to provide. |
Alcohol is a very useful "waste" product for yeast though, it kills many other micro-organisms and yeast is one of the few that can use ethanol as a
carbohydrate ones oxygen becomes available. So they put all there effort in producing ethanol, outcompeting bacteria and such by using their carbon
source, killing them with the ethanol as a bonus and if oxygen becomes available they have a nice carbon supply no one else seems to like (except
humans that is).
Ofcourse that doubling time is only reached in optimal lab conditions, nowhere in nature yeast will reach 30 minutes.
[Edited on 30-11-2016 by Tsjerk]
[Edited on 30-11-2016 by Tsjerk]
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