Ethanol from Coke Oven Gas ? Good News for Steel Industry

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The same topic (along with a bigger picture of the whole gamut of start-up companies working on bio-fuel and greentech technologies to produce ethanol) was also presented by the Chief Scientific Officer of Khosla Ventures (a sillicon valley VC firm started by India-born VC Vinod Khosla), Dr. Doug Cameron at Pitt, Swanson School of Engineering. This was the Bayer's Distinguish Lecture 2008. He showed how they have helped many start-up companies to do research in this area which is a booming field for future clean technology development for alternate fuels in the USA and also in India, Brazil, China, etc.

In a specific way, amongst other methods, he also talked about how the CO or carbon monoxide which is found in the coke oven gas in any steel industry (which also carries heavy energy, it is a fuel having good Calorific Value) can be used to produce ethanol following a green bio-route. Normally, this gas is burnt off or used in some other areas like furnaces in a steel industry. Therefore, it holds a great promise for future greentech to produce ethanol which is a substitute for the limited reserve of our gasoline or diesel.