Bioethanol from moringa olefira and pithecellobium dulce leafs: Production and characterization

ABSTRACT

Motive of this research is the production of bioethanol from two different biowastes and analysis of its thermal properties. The study of thermal properties can find the suitability of bioethanol with spark ignition engine operations. Bioethanol was produced as follows: extraction, pre-treatment, enzymatic hydrolysis, and fermentation. Before this process, the feedstock was analyzed through thermo-gravimetric analysis (TGA) to analyze rate of mass reduction with respect to temperature. From TGA, the maximum percentage of mass reduction was found up to 35% with pithecellobium dulce leaf and up to 42% with moringa olefira leaf. During enzymatic hydrolysis, the cellulose was hydrolyzed into fermentable sugars and produced the cellulosic ethanol. After hydrolysis, saccharomyces cerevisiae was used for fermentation which induced the process to produce bioethanol. The maximum conversion rate was noted about 40 wt% with moringa olefira leafs and 28 wt% with pithecellobium dulce leafs. The extracted ethanol was subjected to thermal properties analysis which includes calorific value, density, viscosity, octane number, and cetane number. All those properties were found better with blends of tire oil, bioethanol, and gasoline. Also Fourier transform infrared spectrometry spectra confirmed the functional groups of alcohol, alkyne, Carbonyl, amide, and aromatic contents.

KEYWORDS:

• Moringa olefira
• pithecellobium dulce
• hydrolysis
• fermentation
• bio ethanol
• FTIR