Alcohol
Definition
Historical
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 (acetone-butanol-ethanol)
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, which utilized Clostridium acetobutylicum, 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. source: 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
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. source: 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
- Ethanol
- Methanol
Solvent
Medicine
- sterilization - intoxication: brain; heart; liver; gut
To make ethanol from hemp, you will need to extract the cellulose from the plant material. Cellulose is the main component of plant cell walls, and it is what gives plants their structure. To extract the cellulose, you can use a process called hydrolysis. Hydrolysis is a chemical reaction that breaks down the cellulose into smaller molecules.
Once the cellulose has been extracted, you will need to ferment it. Fermentation is a process that breaks down the cellulose into sugars. These sugars can then be used to make ethanol.
To make ethanol from hemp, you will need to follow these steps:
1. Extract the cellulose from the plant material.
2. Ferment the cellulose.
3. Use the fermented sugar to make ethanol.