The OFMSW can be a sustainable source of biomass for bioethanol production on industrial scale, solving the dual problem of waste management and food versus energy nexus. In the process of scaling up ethanol production, the major challenge is overcoming the bacterial contamination. OFMSW is a high dry matter, complex substrate which makes heat sterilization very difficult. The primary bacterial contaminants are LAB. Currently, bioethanol industries use different antibiotics to control the contamination, but this has led to the emergence of antibiotic resistance bacterial strains, leading to environmental pollution as well as economic problem for bioethanol industries.
Extracts and pretreated liquids from various biomass like parts of date palm or mangrove tree were analyzed to see if they could inhibit LAB but allowing the growth of the yeast, S.cereviasae using plating techniques. Extracts or pretreated liquids which exhibits this property can be used as an alternative for the antibiotics in ethanol fermentation to inhibit lactic acid production. Various pretreated liquids derived from native biomasses in Abu Dhabi, was identified as natural antibiotics for ethanol production. The pretreated liquids of the rachis of the date palm and that of the mangrove stem and leaf were the promising natural antibiotics identified in this study.