Potential use of liquid pinapple waste for bioethanol production by immobilized bakers' yeast

Abstract

Bioethanol is the most extensively used biofuel for transportation in the world. Nowadays, researchers are focusing in producing bioethanol from crops and agricultural wastes. Malaysia contributes to 1% of world pineapple production which corresponds to an enormous amount of waste generation per year. Utilization of waste from pineapple processing industry for bioethanol production could help to reduce potential environmental issues. In this study, Bakers' yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) was immobilized in modified PVA-alginate beads to produce bioethanol from liquid pineapple waste. The results revealed that by using 10 % (w/v) of the immobilized cells highest overall productivity of 0.0752 g/L/h and maximum production of 5.4179 g/L of bioethanol could be achieved. Although its maximum productivity of immobilized yeast was 0.0752 g/L/h which appreciably lower than that of the free cells, this deficiency is balanced by its overall productivity which is almost 50 % higher compared to that of free cells.