Advancing ethanol quality amidst a pandemic: a case study from Saskatchewan

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Abstract
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Canada faced a significant challenge addressing the demand for hand sanitizers. Despite having a thriving ethanol industry, the country was not equipped to address this need. The automative ethanol sector in Canada produces lower quality ethanol containing significant impurities that make their products unacceptable for use in hand sanitizers. Meanwhile, distilleries that produce higher grades of ethanol could not keep pace with the unprecendented demand. To address this issue, the Saskatchewan Structural Sciences Centre was employed to develop quality assurance methods for upgrading fuel-grade ethanol into higher grade alcohol, suitable for hand sanitizer. Through partnerships with various stakeholders, we successfully purified fuel-grade ethanol to comply with Health Canada guidelines. Our approach involved several strategies to enrich fuel-grade ethanol, including ozonation, alkaline salt and copper sulfate treatments, and carbon filtration. We also optimized the conditions of the distillation column to further reduce fusel oils to acceptable levels. While acetals and acetaldehyde posed a challenge in the purification process, a combination of amine treatments and optimized distillation were effective in decreasing these impurities to compliant levels. This review not only discusses the potential for Saskatchewan's ethanol producers to enrich fuel-grade ethanol to a higher quality but also highlights how the adversities of the pandemic precipitated innovative research applications. These efforts fostered collaborations between academia, government, and industry, addressing urgent needs, advancing economic sustainability, and transforming a crisis into an opportunity for rapid scientific progress and efficient resource optimization, all while promoting the principals of a circular economy.
Funding Information
  • Ministry of Agriculture - Saskatchewan (20170133, 20180248, 20180255, 20180281, 20190154, 20190155, 20210773)
  • National Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada Discovery Grant (RGPIN-2018-06631)
  • Mitacs (IT16156, IT19122)

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