Abstract
The production of acetone and butanol by the industrial fermentation process began in Britain with a commercial quest to develop suitable raw material for the manufacture of synthetic rubber. This beginning was overtaken by the strategic importance of achieving the rapid expansion of an industrial process to produce acetone needed for the manufacture of munitions during the First World War. During the decades following the war, the process was adapted for commercial solvent production in the United States. This success led to the expansion of the industry in America and the establishment of the process in Britain, South Africa, and Puerto Rico, and it became a major driving force in the development of the chemical industry. During the 1930s, the industrial process was also established in the USSR, Japan, and Taiwan for the strategic production of solvents. The fermentation process remained of key strategic importance during the Second World War, and after the war the commercial production of solvents by fermentation resumed and reached a peak with the process in full production in 11 counties, including new plants in China, Brazil, Egypt, Poland, and Czechoslovakia. Due to increasing competition from the petrochemical industry, the commercial fermentation process in the West began to decline in the 1960s, and by the 1990s, all the plants had ceased operation with the exception of those in China and Egypt. This century there have been a number of initiatives and advances aimed at reestablishing the commercial fermentation route for producing biobutanol from renewable biomass, but these endeavors continue to be thwarted by the problem of achieving sustainable competitive financial viability.