Production of ethanol from Leucaena Leucocephala using Kluyveromyces Marxianus UniMAP

Abstract

Ethanol which can be produced from any organic matter with abundant amount of sugar content is called bioethanol. It can act as a great fuel sources as the fossil fuels nowadays comes to its depletion. Bioethanol is an environmental friendly sources that can replace current fuels which contains more toxic materials. As this demand increases greatly, many researches have been conducted to produce bioethanol. The second generation bioethanol for producing bioethanol arises from biomass feedstock. Hence, the aim of this study is to produce bioethanol from biomass feedstock which is Leucaena leucocephala seeds which it has to go through series of pretreatment in getting the fermentable sugar before producing ethanol through fermentation. Fermentation process was conducted in Simultaneous Sacchad rification and Fermentation (SSF) conditions where the process were done simultaneously in a bioreactor aided by Kluyveromyces marxianus UniMAP 1-1 as the fermenting microbes This yeast is capable in converting sugar to ethanol in slightly high temperature. Critical parameters such as hydrolysate concentration, inoculum concentration and enzyme concentration were monitored wisely. DNS method was used to test the reducing sugar concentration while Gas Chromatography (GC) was used to test the ethanol concentration. Best condition for factor hydrolysate concentration, inoculum concentration and enzyme concentration from this study were 50%, 50g/L and 2FPU respectively. The yield of ethanol from this SSF Fermentation is 0.126 g/g (3.15 g/L of ethanol) from 25.0 g/L of glucose. This report provides further SSF Fermentation information in the interest of producing ethanol from Petai Belalang seeds by using K. marxianus.