Bioethanol production from cassava (Manihot esculenta) peels

In recent years, the production of ethanol from plentiful, low cost cellulosic biomass or agricultural wastes has grown in importance due to the hope that it could reduce the cost of ethanol production and benefit the global environment. The application of using cassava residues for ethanol production could be of great advantage to a country’s economy; hence, this study was carried out to determine the possibility of bioethanol production from cassava peels as a cheaper bioethanol source. Cassava peels were collected, cleaned, chopped and fermented for 14 days by Saccharomyces cerevisiae isolated from palm wine. In this study, parameters including biomass, ethanol yield, pH, titratable acidity and reducing sugar were analyzed at two day intervals using standard methods. There was a drop in pH from 5.0 to 3.8 in the yeast ameliorated batch of fermentation with ethanol yield of 7.5 mL and about 8.1% alcohol content produced. There was a progressive increase in titratable acidity and cell biomass; and a decrease in reducing sugar during the course of fermentation of both the test and control batches. The results from this study showed that ethanol production from cassava peels could provide solution to the problems of their disposal into the environment and also serve as an alternative option to ethanol production from cheaper available raw materials.