The reaction works by replacing one alcohol with another in Fats you have glycerol which has 3 alcohol groups which are attached to 3 fatty acids
when you react an alcohol with a acid you get an ester it is call a transesterification because you substitute one alcohol for another since the alkanes you mentioned do not have an alcohol group you could not use them doing the transesterification reaction. if you could catalytically oxidize to form a alcohol ... (oxidize alkane think explosion or fire) them maybe. ----Original Message Follows---- From: "Teoman Naskali" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Reply-To: Biofuel@sustainablelists.org To: <Biofuel@sustainablelists.org> Subject: [Biofuel] Methanol substitution Date: Fri, 28 Oct 2005 01:15:35 +0300 Just a thoght bu would it be possible to use methane or propane or buthane instead of methanol? One would have to have some methanol for the methroxide but still... that would save a lot of money. Has anynone experimented? Any good reason why I shouldn't? _______________________________________________ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/ _______________________________________________ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/