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A Natural Diversion

Ethanol, carbon dioxide, and acetic acid via monads

NOWA?	Substance	Status
LIBR	Water	Prev
NOWA	Honey	Pending
NOWA	Yeast	Pending
LIBR	Ethanol	Pending
NOWA	Acetobacter	Pending
LIBR	Acetic acid	Pending

Justification

Ethanol and acetic acid are both produced as waste products by microbes. We will turn aside from our stream of logical goals to explore the principle of "Let nature do the heavy lifting."

Path

• The production of ethanol and acetic acid is still done the way we do it here. There are other methods but we will follow the original path. Natural yeasts produce ethanol from sugars, and acetobacter produce acetic acid from ethanol. Both yeasts and acetobacter are ubiquitous in our environment, and are easy to capture and culture. Both ethanol and acetic acid are useful materials, and as a side benefit, yeasts produce carbon dioxide as a biproduct of producing ethanol. Nature is willing to do a lot of chemistry for us if we'll just let her.

  C₆H₁₂O₆ → 2 C₂H₅OH + 2 CO₂ // yeast fermentation

  C₂H₅OH + O₂ → CH₃COOH + H₂O // acetobacter fermentation