Production of bio-ethanol from an innovative mixture of surgical waste cotton and waste card board after ammonia pre-treatment

ABSTRACT

Ethanol production from waste biomass using a slightly modified bio-refinery approach was performed in this work to cater to the increasing need of alternate fuels and fuel additives globally. A surgical waste cotton and waste packaging cardboard mixture after a 15% v/v ammonia pre-treatment showed 70% lignin removal. An optimized saccharification using In-house Cellulases produced from Trichoderma harzanium ATCC 20846 had a percentage saccharification of 45% and percentage yield saccharification of 94.6%. An optimized fermentation using Saccharomyces cereviseae strain RW143 resulted in the yield of 0.4 g ethanol/g glucose from the 15% (v/v) glucose in the enzymatically saccharified hydrolysate loaded. The distilled ethanol had 90% (v/v) concentration and180 proof (twice the amount of concentration percentage in v/v) purity. 1 kg biomass mixture when processed as mentioned would yield 120 mL ethanol. Two diesel-ethanol blends (E-10 and E-20) and a commercial Diesel control were used to rate an IC engine’s brake power.

KEYWORDS:

• Cellulases
• Ethanol
• Fermentation
• Pre-treatment
• Saccharification