World’s largest bio-butanol project comes online in Haimen, Jiangsu
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A project with a total investment of $80 million to produce bio-butanol using cassava as raw material has been put into operation at Lianhai Bio-Technology Co., Ltd. in Haimen, Jiangsu. The project is expected to produce 200,000 tons of bio-butanol, making it the largest bio-butanol project in the world. Butanol, also known as butyl alcohol, is a biofuel that serves as a substitute for petroleum. Similar to ethanol and biodiesel, it has better physical properties than ethanol, allowing it to be added to gasoline in high concentrations as a fuel for vehicles without the need to modify the vehicles. The first phase of this project, which is now in operation, has an annual production capacity of 50,000 tons of butanol; phases 2 and 3 will have an annual production capacity of 150,000 tons each. All phases are scheduled to be completed and put into operation by the end of 2010.
In my opinion, the large-scale production of biomass butanol will help alleviate the current shortage of n-butanol in China. N-butanol is primarily used as a chemical raw material as well as a fuel; however, the scale of its production and the availability of raw materials such as cassava remain issues that need to be addressed over a long period of time, and these challenges are quite significant. :handshake