Monday, May 4, 2009
9-65

Ethanol Production from Food Wastes

Y.S Hong1, S. J. Park1, Ji Hyeon Kim2, J.W. Lee3, and H. H. Yoon1. (1) Chemical Engineering, Kyungwon University, San 65 Bokjung-dong, Sungnam, South Korea, (2) Department of Chemical and Bio Engineering, Kyungwon University, San 65 Bokjung-dong, Sungnam, South Korea, (3) Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Sogang University, Shinsoo-dong, Seoul, 121-741, South Korea

Approximately 5 million tons of food wastes are generated annually in South Korea. Most of the food wastes are landfilled or incinerated, causing ground water contamination or emission of noxious gases and dioxins. Hence, food waste management has been important issue for protecting the environment as well as for conservation of resources. Starch and cellulose materials are the major components of the food waste. It also contains some protein materials. The starch and cellulosic components of the food waste can be hydrolyzed to monomeric sugars. The sugars then can be used as substrates in the fermentative production of variety of chemicals, such as ethanol. Bioethanol has been considered as the most promising alternative fuel.
  In this work, food wastes was converted to ethanol by simultaneous saccharification with commercial a-amylase and amyloglucosidase preparations, and fermentation by employing a S. cerevisiae. The simultaneous saccharification and fermentation was performed in a batch mode. It has been demonstrated that over 40 g/L of ethanol could be produced from 100g/L food waste in less than 36h. The influence of substrate concentration, enzyme loading, and nitrogen supplements on the yield and the rate of ethanol production were evaluated.
Key words: Food waste; bioethanol; SSF; S. cerevisiae; amylase.

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See more of The 31st Symposium on Biotechnology for Fuels and Chemicals (May 3-6, 2009)