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Butanol

From Biocrawler, the free encyclopedia.

Butanol is a higher alcohol with a 4 carbon atoms and a general formula of C₄H₁₀O. There are 4 different isomeric structures for butanol:

butan-1-ol         CH3-CH2-CH2-CH2-OH

butan-2-ol         CH3-CH2-CH(OH)-CH3

sec-butanol        CH3-CH-CH3
                       |
                       CH2OH

                      OH
                      |
tert-butanol      CH3-C-CH3
                      |
                      CH3

These butanol isomers, due to their different structures, have somewhat different melting and boiling points. All are moderately miscible in water and used as a base for perfumes. Like most alcohols, they are poisonous.

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Uses

Butanol may also be used as a fuel for an automobile with the standard internal combustion engine. Typically, butanol is the product of fermentation of biomass with the bacterium Clostridium acetobutylicum, also known as the Weizmann organism. As it was Chaim Weizmann who first used this bacteria for the production of acetone from starch to make TNT in 1916.sv:Butanol