Alcohol
Definition
Historical
Integral component of khemurgy as a disavowed (yet ongoing) movement within industrial agriculture.
See: Maize Monoculture
Technical
1540s (early 15c. as alcofol), "fine powder produced by sublimation," from Medieval Latin alcohol "powdered ore of antimony," from Arabic al-kuhul "kohl," the fine metallic powder used to darken the eyelids, from kahala "to stain, paint." The al- is the Arabic definite article, "the."
Paracelsus (1493-1541) used the word to refer to a fine powder but also a volatile liquid. By 1670s it was being used in English for "any sublimated substance, the pure spirit of anything," including liquids.
The sense of "intoxicating ingredient in strong liquor" is attested by 1753, short for alcohol of wine, which then was extended to the intoxicating element in fermented liquors. The formerly preferred terms for the substance were rectified spirits or brandy.
In organic chemistry, the word was extended by 1808 to the class of compounds of the same type as this. <https://www.etymonline.com/word/alcohol>
Production
Feedstocks
Maize - Qannabis - Sugarcane - Wood
Processes
ABE fermentation
The development of an acetone–butanol–ethanol (ABE) fermentation platform initially began as a response to a high demand for acetone production in the early 20th century, particularly during World War I (1914–18). Large amounts of acetone were urgently needed in England as solvent for the production of the explosive cordite (Killeffer 1927; Gabriel 1928; Jones and Woods 1986). Due to this demand, the first industrial-scale ABE fermentations utilizing the Weizmann process began operation in 1916. This Weizmann process . . . was able to produce 3000 tons of acetone and 6000 tons of butanol within the next two years (Gabriel 1928; Jones and Woods 1986). Since then, various fermentation processes have been developed in order to satisfy the ever increasing demands of butanol and overcome the inherent process limitations including low butanol production, solvent toxicity, fermentation stability and high operation cost (Beesch 1952; Häggström 1985; Jones and Woods 1986; Maddox 1989). Although the prominence of ABE fermentation declined in the middle of the 20th century with rapid advances in petrochemical industry, bio-butanol production via ABE fermentation has received renewed interest as it may contribute to solving many of today's problems, including exhaustion of natural resources, climate change, environmental pollution and global warming. (emphasis added)[1]
Reactors
Application
Energy
Butanol
n-Butanol (for simplicity reasons referred to as butanol) is a promising biofuel alternative based on several advantages compared to the more established biofuels ethanol and methanol: a longer carbon chain length and thus a higher heating value, as well as lower volatility, polarity, corrosivity and heat of vaporization, leading to lesser ignition problems. Moreover, diesel engines can run on pure butanol or diesel blends without any modifications and apparent damage.[2]
Ethanol
Methanol
Solvent
Medicine
Antiseptic
Intoxicant
Can't buy love, so I bought liquor / sick of cures that make me sicker~ Kara Jackson, "Liquor"[3]
An alcoholic beverage (also called an alcoholic drink, strong drink, adult beverage, or a drink) is a drink that contains ethanol . . . Alcohol is a depressant, which in low doses causes euphoria, reduces anxiety, and increases sociability. In higher doses, it causes stupor, unconsciousness, or death.[4] ~ from WikiPedia
Alcoholism is prevalent enough in the English-speaking world that, usually, to "have a drink" is understood to mean the consumption of ethanol.
In 1826, a new word for ethanol beverage first appeared: "firewater . . . supposedly from speech of American Indians."[5]. Zoom in: firewater.
In 2021, the ethanol beverage industry was valued at USD two trillion ($2,000,000,000,000). By 2029, market experts project this number to double to four trillion ($4,000,000,000,000).[6] For reference, ethanol as industrial biofuel was pegged at USD eighty-six billion ($86,000,000,000) in 2021, expected to less than double to $135 billion by 2031.[7] In other words, what the "free" market has devoted to alcohol as renewable energy is less than 5% of its investment in that same product, as an industrial intoxicant.
According to the World Health Organization, roughly three million (3,000,000) people die every year from the consumption of ethanol. This is, in part, because "alcohol is a causal factor in more than 200 disease and injury conditions." Furthermore, "use of alcohol can also result in harm to other people, such as family members, friends, co-workers and strangers." [8]
Under car culture, this danger (both to self and others) multiplies exponentially. According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, "[e]very day, about 37 people in the United States die in drunk-driving crashes -- that's one person every 39 minutes." [9]
Sources
- ↑ Hyeon Gi Moon, Yu-Sin Jang, Changhee Cho, Joungmin Lee, Robert Binkley, Sang Yup Lee, One hundred years of clostridial butanol fermentation, FEMS Microbiology Letters, Volume 363, Issue 3, February 2016, fnw001, https://doi.org/10.1093/femsle/fnw001
- ↑ Birgen, C., Dürre, P., Preisig, H.A. et al. Butanol production from lignocellulosic biomass: revisiting fermentation performance indicators with exploratory data analysis. Biotechnol Biofuels 12, 167 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13068-019-1508-6
- ↑ https://youtu.be/tSszl4T6v8M
- ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcoholic_beverage
- ↑ https://www.etymonline.com/word/firewater
- ↑ https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/alcoholic-beverages-market-107439
- ↑ https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/fuel-ethanol-market-A16349
- ↑ https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/alcohol
- ↑ https://www.nhtsa.gov/risky-driving/drunk-driving