Audi e-benzin – a fully-synthetic RON 100 ‘gasoline’

audi e-benzin

Audi has announced the development of “e-benzin,” a sustainable fuel produced synthetically without the use of petroleum. Produced by collaboration partner Global Bioenergies, the fuel is 100% iso-octane, which means it has a high octane rating of RON 100.

The fuel – which contains no sulfur or benzene – burns very cleanly, and the automaker says the high-grade fuel will enable engines to use high compression ratios for enhanced efficiency.

The fuel’s base material is isobutene, which is produced by Global Bioenergies at its pilot plant in Pomacle, France. The isobutene is made from renewable raw materials rather than the usual petroleum. Another project partner, the Fraunhofer Center for Chemical-Biotechnological Processes in Leuna, Germany, transforms the gaseous isobutene into liquid iso-octane with the aid of hydrogen.

Global Bioenergies is set to begin producing larger quantities of the new fuel in 2016, and Audi says it will be testing the new fuel both in the lab and in test engines. Both parties are also looking at modifying the process so that it requires no biomass, instead requiring just water, hydrogen, CO2 and sunlight.

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Anthony Lim

Anthony Lim believes that nothing is better than a good smoke and a car with character, with good handling aspects being top of the prize heap. Having spent more than a decade and a half with an English tabloid daily never being able to grasp the meaning of brevity or being succinct, he wags his tail furiously at the idea of waffling - in greater detail - about cars and all their intrinsic peculiarities here.

 

Comments

  • kzm buda bodo (Member) on May 22, 2015 at 7:05 pm

    Audi Germany so advanced. But Audi Malaysia and the ex-Proton fools manning Audi Malaysia are a joke. Even basic service also they cock up.

    Such a good car but you have ex Proton technicians repairing your car. They are lazy, no goals in life and always wanting the tongkat. So, expect your car to be cocked up when you send your car for service.

    Like or Dislike: Thumb up 28 Thumb down 60
    • 1MDB (Malas Dolop Bodoh) on May 23, 2015 at 11:10 am

      Our Government is not interested in inventions. they are more interested in making the longest ketupat in the world, the biggest songkok in the world and the tallest tower in the world.

      Real inventions, education and health are ZERO. No inventions at all. Even Bio Diesel, they just tool 90% diesel, mixed 10% with Palm Oil, then they claim they invented Bio Diesel.

      Like or Dislike: Thumb up 33 Thumb down 7
  • hahaha on May 22, 2015 at 8:53 pm

    e-benzin!!!! Available in Malaysia in 2100…

    Like or Dislike: Thumb up 22 Thumb down 4
    • Nonama on May 23, 2015 at 7:34 am

      Should this be a breakthrough then it is this end for oil producing countries, Malaysia included

      Like or Dislike: Thumb up 13 Thumb down 0
    • audisti on May 23, 2015 at 10:38 am

      bad news for Arabs Sheikhs.. maybe petronas should revamp their strategic plans and make investments in this ‘futuristic’ e-benzin..sic

      Like or Dislike: Thumb up 5 Thumb down 3
      • unexpected from the most overrated car manufacturer in the world..

        Like or Dislike: Thumb up 1 Thumb down 4
  • Absolute Rider on May 22, 2015 at 9:02 pm

    As I said before, Malaysia left far behind again!

    RON 100 for Malaysia will be available…as
    “hahaha” said 2100. RON 1XX for others!

    Like or Dislike: Thumb up 4 Thumb down 8
    • RON102 on May 22, 2015 at 9:21 pm

      FYI, RON 102 also commercially available in Germany as well. Heard about Aral 102?? I think it should be the highest rating fuels in Europe or in the world. BP once sold BP Ultimate 102 but discontinued since 2006. Petronas can produce RON 100 or higher but only strictly for racing purposes but not formulate it to commercial grade.

      Like or Dislike: Thumb up 9 Thumb down 3
  • kissmelo on May 22, 2015 at 9:16 pm

    You want e-benzin. We can do it and we know this technology much longer before PT wrote this. The reason we never deliver to our consumer because we are busying to help the rich become even richer. Which mean we only produce one of the highest quality fuels to other countries but we will give whatever left over to our pathetic Malaysians. And some of them believed our fuels were derived from F1 technology. It’s not entirely wrong because our commercial fuels do contain some amount of racing additives, but they are just poor quality only. Want high quality fuels? Please wait until the day you ‘sleeping forever’. We are now planning to delay our Euro 4 fuel to 2025. So just wait and continue support our poor quality fuels.

    Sekian, terima kasih.

    Like or Dislike: Thumb up 26 Thumb down 4
  • Synthetic oil? Just water and sunlight? Big oil no likey. Inkambing big oil will buyout Audi.

    Like or Dislike: Thumb up 3 Thumb down 2
  • lee seb on May 22, 2015 at 10:15 pm

    Ron100 can be done with methanol mix with ron95 petrol plus special formulated additives.

    Like or Dislike: Thumb up 3 Thumb down 5
    • MarlboroMan on May 25, 2015 at 1:20 am

      hmm… i think if you add methanol into it, the energy release vs. fuel consumption BSFC will be lowered.

      Like or Dislike: Thumb up 0 Thumb down 0
  • amran fans on May 22, 2015 at 10:36 pm

    we malaysian already have this technology call it E-BOOSTER
    mean extract water molecule H2O and take only hydrogen molecule H2 put into combustion chamber make RON95 became RON97

    Like or Dislike: Thumb up 4 Thumb down 13
    • Ultra2Disk on May 22, 2015 at 11:14 pm

      wew, Amran Fans, which petrol station you sell this E-BOOSTER ? Can I drop by and fuel up ?

      Like or Dislike: Thumb up 9 Thumb down 1
    • DonkeyKong on May 23, 2015 at 1:08 am

      Rubbish.This is something to con people who don’t know better.

      Like or Dislike: Thumb up 7 Thumb down 3
  • Heng Lee on May 22, 2015 at 10:46 pm

    Makes sense, as petrol is easier to store than hydrogen.

    But will it be affordable?

    Like or Dislike: Thumb up 0 Thumb down 0
  • RON 97 + X1R oil = RON 100

    Like or Dislike: Thumb up 1 Thumb down 10
  • venven81 on May 23, 2015 at 1:01 am

    kudos to the 4 rings! earlier they were testing their car with e-diesel and now e-benzin. it’s always nice to hear about any new tech that has got less dependency on fossil fuel as we all know what the giant oil producers are capable of doing to the fuel market, thus the economy. if and when this could be mass-produced, then only the price would be brought down to an acceptable level (hopefully). hope the other manufacturers will join effort to make it possible soon!

    Like or Dislike: Thumb up 5 Thumb down 0
  • If they can mass produce this at a reasonable price, it will be a total winner. Arguably cleaner and more efficient than battery since it does not contain sulphides where as battery usually contains dangerous chemicals.

    Like or Dislike: Thumb up 5 Thumb down 0
  • Obviously (Member) on May 23, 2015 at 9:32 am

    Many people here are missing the point entirely…it’s not the RON100 that’s remarkable, but the fact that this is a

    fully synthetic petrol that is not made from petroleum.

    The fact that it has a RON100 rating is just a bonus.

    Like or Dislike: Thumb up 15 Thumb down 0
    • infinity on May 23, 2015 at 12:03 pm

      Exactly! Making petrol from biomass is not something new, at least in the academic/scientific world. However, making petrol without biomass, i.e. only using CO2,H2O,hydrogen and sunlight is remarkable!

      Like or Dislike: Thumb up 6 Thumb down 0
      • Obviously (Member) on May 23, 2015 at 1:38 pm

        Making petrol from biomass isn’t something new but the process by which it is achieved can always be improved upon. The end-product may vary with a different process also. It’s quite useless to be unable to mass produce it for use, eh? To my knowledge, mass production of biomass-derived fuels has yet to be done.

        They haven’t achieved biomass-less petroleum yet, but they seem to be confident that it is possible. And if they can discover a way of doing so with reasonable costs, they’ll have done the world a huge favor.

        And punched oil giants in the gut.

        Like or Dislike: Thumb up 4 Thumb down 0
      • bestbeast on May 24, 2015 at 9:03 pm

        That why Japanese doing research in photosynthesis….arficial photosynthesis can produce fuel and numbers of useful chemicals….

        Like or Dislike: Thumb up 0 Thumb down 0
      • And yet Proton has done nothing in the so called “R&D”, just produce crap engine that pollute the world

        Like or Dislike: Thumb up 0 Thumb down 1
    • infinity on May 23, 2015 at 12:03 pm

      Exactly! Making petrol from biomass is not something new, at least in the academic/scientific world. However, making petrol without biomass, i.e. only using CO2,H2O,hydrogen and sunlight is remarkable!

      Like or Dislike: Thumb up 4 Thumb down 0
  • Conspiracy Theorist on May 23, 2015 at 1:26 pm

    if this is like the movies, France and Germany will be “liberated” very soon, the companies involved will be bought over and the inventors of this technology will “disappear” so that this fuel will never see the light of day and petroleum will still rule the world.

    Like or Dislike: Thumb up 6 Thumb down 0
  • Jilbaber (Member) on May 24, 2015 at 6:22 pm

    I still believe in combustion engine and nothing will replace it..that’s way I forbids any of my kids and my spouses to buy hybrid car or EV.. if not then ‘use you own money’

    Like or Dislike: Thumb up 2 Thumb down 6
  • Jilbaber (Member) on May 24, 2015 at 7:39 pm

    Imagine if German hv this tech during Nazi regime…what would WW2 outcome will be meh…

    Like or Dislike: Thumb up 1 Thumb down 0
  • horrayooi on May 25, 2015 at 11:06 am

    Petrol prices will drop RM0.30 sen per litre. Sale of Perodua small capacity cars will dropped. People will only buy big cars. Those Arabs will stop fightings, no wars. Peace.

    Like or Dislike: Thumb up 1 Thumb down 0
  • adam zzz zzz on May 25, 2015 at 4:40 pm

    no need to be excited about ron100 lah if driving myvi only. wan to ram school bus until all children die is it?

    Like or Dislike: Thumb up 0 Thumb down 0
  • sammy on May 26, 2015 at 1:42 pm

    For a nation that depend so heavily on oil income, we ought to seriously looking for alternatives while we have the capital to do so. Such invention by Audi is a very good example of what we should look at. Promoting EV cars won’t solve our financial problems once the oil runs dry.

    Like or Dislike: Thumb up 0 Thumb down 0
 

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