Bioethanol production from local fruit waste and its optimization

Abstract

Bioethanol has been a focus of researchers as alternate green fuel. Agro residues could be a promising resource for bioechanol production. In this study, we explored the potential of these fruit wastes to produce total reducing sugars (TRS), pentose sugars (PS) and bioethanol.. For this purpose, fruit wastes (pineapple, cashew fruit and plantain peels) were taken as a substrate with the use of microorganism Saccharomyces cerevisiae. The conversion of fruits wastes were carried out via acid hydrolysis, which yielded fermentable sugar. The results showed that the ethanol production rate through fermentation of fruit waste yields was optimal at pH 5.5, temperature 32°C, specific gravity 0.865 and a concentration of about 6.10%. For viability of producing ethanol in large quantities and reasonable costs, we did optimization of various physicochemical parameters viz. pH, temperature and specific gravity. The waste materials after fermentation serve as soil fertilizer.