What do you mean?
Economy of fuels relies heavily on how they are produced. So depending on the precursors, efficiency or reactions, purification steps, etc. it could be good or total waste of time.
Butanol has more energy than methanol or ethanol, it has lower volatility and vapor pressure and mixes well with gasoline or diesel. The problem is cost of production, however that didn't stop ethanol, so government subsidies could potentially make it a viable fuel.
The economic considerations and production costs are the only thing that's stopping it from outright replacing gasoline or ethanol.
I thought you knew this.
Isn’t that what I said?
If you’re looking purely at molecular structure, why not go to hexanol? It will have more C-C and C-H bonds so more more energy per mol. Still has decent vapor pressure and miscibility. That part is obvious which is why I thought you were asking about the economics.
Off the top of my head I don’t know the current production stream for butanol. The government can subsidize anything but that doesn’t make it a “good” fuel.
To me, a good fuel has the right chemical properties for the application, cheap feedstocks, simple reactions and purification steps, burns cleanly, and can be produced in mass quantities.
So asking, “Is X a good fuel?” Isn’t just a chemical question to me. That’s the easy part.
Hexanol doesn't blend with gasoline, and only partially with diesel and has to be mixed with ethanol. Ethanol is hydrophilic and corrosive, so maybe it could work as a diesel replacement. Butanol mixes with both diesel and gasoline, and is hydrophobic, as such current fuel transportation infrastructure can move butanol fuel with no modifications, and engines can run on a 50/50 mix of gasoline and butanol with no modification needed. It can be synthesized from petroleum distillates but it can also be grown through biomass. The octane rating is also comparable to gasoline and ethanol.
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