how are biofuels made?

Question

i am doing a chem paper so if anyone knows the exact chemical equations and everything thanks

Answer 1

There are different biofuels.
e.g. ethanol is made from corn. The starch (a poly saccaride) in the kernel of the corn is broken down (hydrolysed) to sugars by enzymes or acid hydrolysis. The sugars are fermented to ethanol and ethanol concentrated and purified by distillation.
C6H6(OH)6 (glucose) = CH3CH2OH (ethanol) + CO2

Synthetic diesel.
Methyl esters of fatty acids are formed by transesterification of fat or veg. oils by methanol. Glycerol byproduct is separated off and the methyl esters dried.
3 CH3OH + CH2OOR-(CH-OOR)- CH2OOR = 3 CH3OOR +
CH2OH-CHOH-CH2OH (glycerine)
(catalysed with alkali e.g. KOH or sodium methoxide)

Answer 2

Distillation (like whiskey). Look up the chemical formula for ethanol and work backwards. Corn is used in the USA but is a lousy source since it is a food crop and feed crop (anything using corn will increase in price a lot). Brazil uses sugar cane but the USA placed a prohibitive tariff on its import to protect its own corn-based biofuel industry. Research is being done (but too slowly as the corn lobby is strong) at using waste products like lawn grass and straw to make it.

Answer 3

Ethanol is on the whole produced from corn, with some produced from sugarcane, sugar beets, orange pulp waste, and so on. yet another biofuel is bio-diesel. This gas may be produced from new oils (often rapeseed and soy are the main consumer-friendly), waste oils, or perhaps algae (that's an extremely promising area of examine because of the fact it sounds as though to have the utmost manufacturing yield).

Answer 4

Corn and love.