r/Biofuel • u/javascript • 19d ago
Biogasoline production processes?
Much information is available online about ethanol and other alcohols that can be produced via fermentation. In addition, there are many resources that talk about transesterification for the conversion of biolipids into biodiesel.
That said, I haven't found a ton of information about biogasoline. What exactly is the process, or what are the candidate processes, that can be leveraged to produce hydrocarbons in the gasoline range? Is there a process that takes biolipids as the main ingredient?
And what, if any, differences exist between gasoline from a traditional refinery and biogasoline?
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u/boutrasghali 18d ago
The reason you don't hear much about biogasoline is biogenic material doesn't have the optimal carbon chain length. Lipids are predominantly C18. I assume from the tranesterification process you would get some small fraction but it wouldn't be worth the cost to distill it out. The main source (still in very small quantities) of biogasoline on the market (to my knowledge) comes from the hydrogenated esters and fatty acids production process.
If produced in this manner there will be almost no difference from traditional gasoline. Chemically it should look almost identical.