BIO-ETHANOL PRODUCTION FROM ENVIRONMENTAL WASTE FOLLOWED BY POLYMERIC SEPARATION OF FORMED ETHANOL/WATER MIXTURE

Recent studies are concerned by future energy shortage that projected to occur as a result of fossil fuel depletions. Our study was interested to use the environmental wastes as a raw material for bio-ethanol production. Kitchen wastes are one of the most distributed wastes all over the world. Starchy ingredients in the form of rice mainly are the major component of such wastes. Crude alpha amylase enzyme has been applied to convert the starch molecules into simple units of glucose. Saccharomyces cerevisiae has been subsequently used to ferment the produced glucose units into bioethanol anaerobically. The obtained results showed that 40% rice substrate is the optimum concentration to produce the highest glucose units at 417.9 mg/dl. However, the higher concentration of the substrate (rice) was recorded as a blocking agent for glucose production. On the other hand, the higher percentage of alpha amylase (100 μl) was recorded as the most preferable one to produce the most elevated glucose concentration of approximately 482.5 mg /dl. The highest bioethanol production of 423.5 mg/dlwas obtained after anaerobic fermentation of the free yeast cells at 30oC without shaking. The produced bio-ethanol compared with standard 25% ethanol was separated by using amicon cell ultra-filtration at different nitrogen pressures. Chitosan and sodium alginate membranes were prepared to be used in the bio-ethanol/water separation process. Chitosan and sodium alginate membranes were characterized by SEM and IEC. The hydrophilicity/hydrophobicity of the prepared membranes were investigated using contact angle.