Mahdy, E., Emara, H., Ramadan, M. (2018). Suitability of some Sweet Sorghum Varieties for Bioethanol Production. Journal of Agricultural Chemistry and Biotechnology, 9(9), 205-210. doi: 10.21608/jacb.2018.35371
E. Mahdy; H. Emara; M. Ramadan. "Suitability of some Sweet Sorghum Varieties for Bioethanol Production". Journal of Agricultural Chemistry and Biotechnology, 9, 9, 2018, 205-210. doi: 10.21608/jacb.2018.35371
Mahdy, E., Emara, H., Ramadan, M. (2018). 'Suitability of some Sweet Sorghum Varieties for Bioethanol Production', Journal of Agricultural Chemistry and Biotechnology, 9(9), pp. 205-210. doi: 10.21608/jacb.2018.35371
Mahdy, E., Emara, H., Ramadan, M. Suitability of some Sweet Sorghum Varieties for Bioethanol Production. Journal of Agricultural Chemistry and Biotechnology, 2018; 9(9): 205-210. doi: 10.21608/jacb.2018.35371
Suitability of some Sweet Sorghum Varieties for Bioethanol Production
1Chemistry Department, Faculty of Science, Helwan Univ., -Cairo, Egypt
2Soil, Water and EnvironmentRes. Institute, Agric. Res. Center, Giza, Egypt
Abstract
Bio-ethanol or microbial ethanol is a renewable eco-friendly energy source can be produced from bio-mass (hemicelluloses). Sweet sorghum, with sugar-rich stalks and water-use efficiency, has a very good potential as an alternative feedstock for ethanol production and also non-competing with human food on land. This study evaluates the exploitation of juice and bagasse of four varieties of sweet sorghum for microbial ethanol production which can further improve the energy yield of the sweet sorghum crops. The sweet sorghum varieties, Ramada, GK-coba, SS-301 and Mn-4508 were tested for their productivity, also, its sugar and fiber contents were determined. The four sweet sorghum varieties significantly differed in juice, bagasse and stripped stalk yield. The fiber-rich bagasse, resulting from squeezing the striped stalks and the sugar-rich juice, were used for microbial ethanol production by two microorganisms; Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Zymomonas mobilis. Varieties GK-coba, Mn-4508 and SS-301 were utilized for microbial ethanol production directly from juice where their stalks contained high sugar contents. While, stalks of varieties Ramada and SS-301 had higher content of fibers, so their bagasse were used for microbial ethanol production. Bagasse of sweet sorghum was pretreated and hydrolyzed thermo-chemically for bioethanol production. Zymomonas mobilis and Saccharomyces cerevisiae or mixed-culture of both organisms at a ratio (1:1) were used to ferment sweet sorghum sugars or hydrolyzed neutralized sweet sorghum bagasse to produce microbial ethanol. Results indicated that juice and bagasse of sweet sorghum variety SS-301, by the mixed-culture treatment, gave the highest microbial ethanol production. From the juice, microbial ethanol concentration was 51.36ml/l, whereas from sweet sorghum bagasse, microbial ethanol concentration was 10.5ml/l. 210ml of microbial ethanol can be produced from 1kg of sweet sorghum bagasse for variety SS-301.