National Sugar Institute, Kanpur got breakthrough in developing a cheaper process for converting liquid industrial alcohol into solid form. We have been working on developing bio-fuels as replacement for petroleum based products and after bio-ethanol as automotive fuel, development of this technology shall enable use of solid form of ethanol in place of petroleum product paraffin in the occasions such as catering trade, tourism and field work (army purposes) for heating and warming purposes said Shri Narendra Mohan, Director, National Sugar Institute, Kanpur.
Solid bio ethanol is easy to pack and transport and as the burning is not smoky, does not cause soot, and produces no harmful gases, noncarcinogenic and non-corrosive. Thus, it perfect substitute of paraffin which being petroleum derived product causes soot during burning and produces toxic gas emissions besides having strong and stinging odour of burning, said Director, National Sugar Institute, Kanpur.
The technology has been developed under the guidance of Director, National Sugar Institute by Dr. Vishnu Prabhakar Srivastava and Ms. Mamta Shukla, Research Scholar. Although efforts have been made to develop solid alcohol but generally they have poor storage stability as after a period of time they become soft and pasty with liquid leaking; some produce black smoke and peculiar smell during burning, polluting the environment; some flare black particles causing dust pollution; some are not resistant to combustion; some produce more residue after burning, said Dr. Vishnu Prabhakar Srivastava, Asstt. Professor of Organic Chemistry.
We tried to solidify industrial alcohol by using a curing agent to initiate solidification and ignition dope to facilitate better burning. We could successfully produce solid bio-alcohol using industrial alcohol having concentration around 80% with lower amount of curing agent (less than 1 % by weight). Our method utilized combination of bio-based curing agents and more environmentally friendly ignition dope.
We tried various principle chemicals viz. calcium acetate, nitrocellulose and fatty acid under various conditions of temperature and time with iron nitrate to optimize the process conditions, said Ms. Mamta Shukla, Research Scholar. One litre of industrial alcohol yields about 1.080 kg of solid bio-alcohol, she said.
