Butanol and Acetone from Corn¹: A Description of the Fermentation Process

Abstract

The low price of butanol and the high solvent efficiency of butyl acetate are fundamental to the thriving industry of modern nitrocellulose lacquers. The manufacture of this material by the fermentation of cornstarch is described in this article and the economic effect of the by-products of this process are discussed.

Bio-butanol vs. bio-ethanol: A technical and economic assessment for corn and switchgrass fermented by yeast or Clostridium acetobutylicum

“…Early reports for industrial ABE fermentation of corn by C. acetobutylicum are available [19] at a scale of 100 tonnes of solvent produced per day at two plants. About 3 kg of starch were reportedly converted to 1 kg of mixed solvents (33wt% solvents relative to the mass of starch from corn) with a weight ratio of n-butanol/acetone/ethanol of 6/3/1 and at a final concentration of 2.5 wt% of combined solvents in the fermentation broth.…”

“…This is not practiced when ABE fermentation is performed [9] and fermentation of solubilized starch from corn without enzymatic pre-processing by ABE fermentation is explicitly documented [19]. ABE fermentation proceeds readily on mash with no enzyme addition and saccharification appears to be of no additional value [32].…”

Acetone-butanol fermentation revisited.

“…Around the turn of the century a shortage of natural rubber stimulated interest in the possibility of producing synthetic rubber (61,62,120). Among those working on the problem of rubber synthesis was the chemist Chaim Weizmann, who had arrived in Manchester in 1904 from Berlin at the age of 30.…”

The Past, Present, and Future of Biofuels – Biobutanol as Promising Alternative

“…At the end of the war in 1918, there was no longer a high demand for acetone and consequently all production plants were closed. During the whole war, butanol (about twice the amount of the produced acetone) was considered a white elephant and simply stored in huge containers (Killeffer, 1927). However, the situation changed in 1920, when the United States implemented the prohibition.…”