Efficiency of Waste Banana Peels in Bio-ethanol Production

Abstract

Aim: To check the efficiency of waste banana peels in bio-ethanol production. Methods and Results: Waste from banana fruit peel powder is subjected to the simultaneous saccharification and fermentation process for 7–10 days of co-culture of Aspergillus niger and Saccharomyces cerevisiae and also with a co-culture of Bacillus subtilis and Saccharomyces cerevisiae, in two different batch processes. The extracted β-amylase enzyme from the biomass of Aspergillus niger is also used along with Saccharomyces cerevisiae, as a third batch of fermentation process. The ethanol produced, can be obtained by the fractional distillation process and total ethanol yield is determined by the titrimetric ethanol assay. The ethanol obtained by saccharification and fermentation process gives 6.34, 4.6 and 11.73% yield respectively, for all the three batches of fermentation. Conclusion: The findings of this study suggest that wastes from fruits that contain fermentable sugars can no longer be discarded into our environment, but should be converted to useful products like bio-ethanol that can serve as alternative energy source. Significance and Impact of the study: Rapid increase in the generation of huge quantity of waste is one of the major environmental crises of today. Large quantities of waste materials are generated annually from agricultural activities and processing of agricultural products. Due to their abundant availability and renewable nature, ethanol production from such substrates appears to have immense commercial potential. A different category of waste from the food processing industry is also under investigation as the potential feedstock for value-added products such as bio-ethanol. Out of the total fruit production worldwide, banana (Musa sapientum) constitutes of 16% share in it and Maharashtra being second largest world fruit producers consisting of 21.4% of total share in India.

Keywords: Bio-ethanol production, Aspergillus niger, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, simultaneous saccharification and fermentation (SSF)                                    Cite this Article Apurva Barve, Kishori Tarfe. Efficiency of Waste Banana Peels in Bio-ethanol Production. Research & Reviews: A Journal of Life Sciences. 2017; 7(3):28–32p.