Production of 7000 lit/Batch of Bio-Ethanol by potato peels waste (PPW)

日期 : Apr 2016 - Oct 2016

Bio-ethanol is produced from an energy crop such as sugar cane, wheat or waste potato peel from which sugar is extracted and then fermented to produce the fuel. It can then be used to fuel cars either by mixing with petrol or neat. By sourcing the crops, this plant would stimulate the agricultural economy and provide rural employment. Producing fuel from a home sourced feedstock reduces a reliance on imports. Ethanol is one of the bio-energy sources with high efficiency and low environmental impact. Various raw materials have been used as carbon sources for ethanol production. In this study, waste potato mash was chosen as a carbon source; however, a pretreatment process is needed to convert starch of potato to fermentable carbon sources through liquefaction and saccharification processes. In order to obtain maximum fermentable sugar conversion, optimum parameters for the liquefaction and saccharification processes were obtained. The production stages are as follows; potato peel waste is cleaned and crushed prior to the starch being ‘washed out’, the starch is then hydrolyzed and fermented to produce weak ethanol. Distillation and dehydration processes are then used to concentrate the alcohol to fuel grade (99.8% by mass). This research was carried out to find the optimum conditions for bioethanol production from potato peel waste. From this study, optimum growth of yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) was observed at pH 6.0 and temperature 31˚C. Addition of a small amount of alpha-amylase enzyme to potato solution was found to enhance the potato starch degradation and made the fermentation process quicker. Complete combustion of one litre of petrol results in 2.276 kg of carbon dioxide. In comparison, the complete combustion of one litre of ethanol results in only 1.511 kg of carbon dioxide. The UK currently consumes 32.5billion litres per year, so blending ethanol with petrol will aid national efforts to meet current emissions targets. These tar