Ethanol production from agricultural wastes using Saccharomyces cerevisiae

The main objective of this study was production of ethanol from three lignocellulosic biomasses like sugarcane bagasse, rice straw and wheat straw by Sacchromyces cervisae. All the three substrates were ground to powder form (2 mm) and pretreated with 3%H2O2 + 2% NaOH followed by steaming at 130 °C for 60 min. These substrates were hydrolyzed by commercial cellulase enzyme. The whole fermentation process was carried out in 500 mL Erlenmeyer flask under anaerobic conditions in submerged fermentation at 30 °C for three days of incubation period. FTIR analysis of the substrates indicated significant changes in the alteration of the structure occurred after pretreatment which leads to efficient saccharification. After pretreatment the substrates were hydrolyzed by commercial cellulase enzyme and maximum hydrolysis was observed in sugarcane bagasse (64%) followed by rice straw (40%) and wheat straw (34%). Among all these tested substrates, sugarcane bagasse (77 g/L) produced more ethanol as compared to rice straw (62 g/L) and wheat straw (44 g/L) using medium composition of (%) 0.25 (NH4)2SO4, 0.1 KH2PO4, 0.05 MgSO4, 0.25 Yeast extract by S. cervisae.