Monday, May 2, 2011
Grand Ballroom C-D, 2nd fl (Sheraton Seattle)
There is a great protein deficit both for human and animal feeding. In countries like Venezuela, there are no appropriate climate conditions to grow cereal grains and legumes. Therefore, new protein sources are needed. On the other hand, a total of 25 million liters of bioethanol are annually imported which are mixed with gasoline in a 5:95 ratio as a car fuel. Recently, there has been a massive growth of duckweed (Lemna obscura), an aquatic plant, at the Maracaibo Lake, covering between 4 and 9% of the lake surface. The protein content of duckweed when it has reached the shore is about 6-25% and the fiber content may be up to 40%. As a great part of the protein is chemically associated with the cell wall so both protein and fiber have low digestibility, an ammonia treatment was used. As a result, protein yield increased from 18.18% in the untreated to 44.69% in the treated duckweed whereas sugars produced by enzymatic hydrolysis increased from 36.1 to 87.2 for untreated and treated duckweed, respectively. Duckweed has a great potential for both feed and bioethanol production.
Keywords: duckweed, ammonia treatment, protein concentrate, enzymatic hydrolysis, sugars.