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At the Edinburgh Napier University a star-up is ready to commercialize a process for producing biofuel made from whisky by-products. Initially, Celtic Renewables Ltd will center all of their efforts on Scotland’s £ 4bn malt whisky industry with the purpose of developing biobutanol and other chemicals.

The start-up is working closely with Scottish Enterprise, an institute that helps economic growth and improve business environment. As a result, Celtic Renewables is on its way to producing biofuel from sustainable resources on an industrial scale. The company hopes that the biobutanol could be used as a perfect substitute for fossil-derived fuel and believes that their process has ‘huge global potential’ to be tailored to other biological by-products.

The fermentation process developed by the start-up uses two main by-products of whisky production: ‘pot ale’ (the residue left in copper stills) and ‘draft’ (the spent grains). These are resources readily available since the whisky industry in Scotland produces 1,600 million litres of pot ale and 500,000 tonnes of draft each year.

The use of these by-products has clear advantages over other raw materials in the production of biofuel. For instance, biobutanol provides 25% more power output than the traditional bioethanol. Biobutanol can also run in unmodified engines with petrol and may also be blended with diesel and biodiesel, something out of bioethanol’s reach.

As a direct substitute for fossil-derived fuel, biobutanol could reduce CO2 emissions and provide energy security, especially in the rural and remote areas where the whisky industry is situated.