LONDON: A Scottish startup is exploring the possibility of using whisky by-products as the next alternative to biofuels for power generation.

The company is trying to capitalize on the massive amount of waste generated by one of Scotland’s most valuable industries and turn whisky-making residues into fuel. According to an article in Chemical & Engineering News, the weekly newsletter of the American Chemical Society, Celtic Renewable Energy’s historic technology based on 100 improved fermentation techniques is now making its way to commercial plants.

Martin Tangney, founder, president and chief scientific officer of the Edinburgh-based company, draft beer and lager “have no commercial value and are a problem in the modern context.”

The process of making whiskey requires three ingredients: water, yeast, and grains (primarily barley).

However, only 10% of whisky is produced and the rest is waste.

According to the article, the industry produces 50 portions of 16,000 tons of residual solids (known as residual) and 16 tons of residual solids billion liters of yeast liquor (known as lager beer) per year.

These by-products are typically distributed on farmland, converted into low-grade animal feed, or discharged into the ocean.

Instead of efficiently reusing these materials or discarding them as waste, Celtic Renewable Energy has developed an old industrial technology that converts molasses and other sugars into chemicals, and residues and beer into acetone, 1-butanol, and ethanol.

The latter two can be used as fuel. The company is based in the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change, private funding and Bioo Base Europe This process was scaled up with help.