ethanol help!! (1 Viewer)

[kmorgan.18]

Just a quick question, I have my first chem assessment coming up and I need to..

Assess the possible future directions of ethanol as a biofuel and as an alternative fuel for transportation in Australia.

Thanks!

 

[staceyd]

You will need to discuss advantages and diasdvantaged of the use of ethanol. Eg does it produce more energy per gram than octane? What are the pollutants produced compared to octane? How is it produced? Is the production economically viable?

Most of these questions can be answered by reference to a good chem text and the SI data book.

 

[Forbidden.]

You will need to discuss advantages and diasdvantaged of the use of ethanol. Eg does it produce more energy per gram than octane? What are the pollutants produced compared to octane? How is it produced? Is the production economically viable?

Most of these questions can be answered by reference to a good chem text and the SI data book.

To outline what she said e.g.

Compare the theoretical value of ethanol's 1360kJ/mol with octane's 5430kJ/mol for their heats of combustion.

Ethanol will require less oxygen and hence will undergo a more complete combustion than octane.

Ethanol can be produced by natural processes via fermentation which is a biochemical process and the primary source of energy in this cycle is from sunlight as opposed to octane from crude oil.

We can see that ethanol will soon be a more economically viable option as crude oil supplies become more expensive as it diminishes as ethanol requires large amounts of land clearing to produce it via agricultural means.

Use this as a guide for the information you will find.

 

[kaliber]

don't know this for sure, but like most combustion of fuel Co2 and H2O is produced, which are exactly the reactants required for photosynthesis (growing sugar canes). Therefore ethanol is renewable

sometimes ethical issues are related to such topics, eg. the ethics behind using a foodsource to convert to fuel when there are millions of people starving

 

[xiao1985]

^I cannot put it better myself.

A friend of mine did biofuel as a honour project and one of the fiercely debated issue is the fact that huge proportion of land will be dedicated to "grow" the fuel....

and cost wise, it's not cheaper than crude oil yet. and when it is, the supply might not be able to meet the demand.

 

[Red-Ink-Frenzy]

Don't forget to mention the problem of getting rid of the waste produced by the fermentation process!

 

[davidbarnes]

^I cannot put it better myself.

A friend of mine did biofuel as a honour project and one of the fiercely debated issue is the fact that huge proportion of land will be dedicated to "grow" the fuel....

and cost wise, it's not cheaper than crude oil yet. and when it is, the supply might not be able to meet the demand.

Can you pelase explain what an "honour" project exactly is.

 

[Forbidden.]

don't know this for sure, but like most combustion of fuel Co2 and H2O is produced, which are exactly the reactants required for photosynthesis (growing sugar canes). Therefore ethanol is renewable

sometimes ethical issues are related to such topics, eg. the ethics behind using a foodsource to convert to fuel when there are millions of people starving

If you consider any fuel that is capable of producing H₂O and CO₂ on combustion as renewable, then that will make octane renewable then (which isn't ... =\ ).

The ethanol's main source of production is energy throughout the process is light energy from the sun, which is renewable as it is more readily available over a long period of time in large amounts (Well, for 5 billion years ...).

Octane's main source of production is crude oil, which takes a long time to produce (millions of years) in small amounts, hence it isn't considered renewable.

^I cannot put it better myself.

A friend of mine did biofuel as a honour project and one of the fiercely debated issue is the fact that huge proportion of land will be dedicated to "grow" the fuel....

and cost wise, it's not cheaper than crude oil yet. and when it is, the supply might not be able to meet the demand.

To be specific (which I'm sure you don't have to), Brazil abandoned the primary use of ethanol as fuel in the 1970's due to the large amount of land clearing.

 

[samwell]

Discuss how ethanol is produced from biomass and discuss the advantages of using it in detail. e.g. (Reduction of greenhouse gases since combustion of ethanol is considered to be neutral to the atmosphere)
u can also discuss the disadvantage(e.g. huge plantations are needed for mass production of ethanol and describe the environmental implications of this)

 

[xiao1985]

Honour is an extra year after your bacholar degree, where you devote one year to pursuit an area of interest to you to research.