Production of biofuels from selected cellulosic waste materials

Abstract EN

In this study four types of cellulose-rich municipal solid wastes (residuals) of orange, banana peel, corn residues, and saw dust were used as raw materials.

These cellulosic substrates usually have a lot of lignin content which prevents the process of saccharification by microorganisms.

Thus pretreatment methods of enzymatic, acid or base with enzymatic treatment and dilute acid followed by autoclaving were necessary to dignify these wastes and to obtain higher reducing sugar yields and hence higher ethanol production.

Dilute HCl acid of 1% followed by autoclaving at 121℃ for 30 min proved to give good result where significant amounts of reducing sugars were obtained at the end of the saccharification process.

Orange peel proved to give the highest glucose concentration of an average of 6000 mg/l on day 4 of the saccharification process.

Fermentation was carried out for the hydrolyzed samples using Saccharomyces cerevisiae yeast.

The amount of ethanol produced after fermentation was found to be the highest for orange peel having a value of 1300 mg/l after 96h of incubation.

As science is proceeding, engineered microorganisms could help to produce sustainable fuels from cellulose-rich municipal solid wastes in the future.