Fruit Bio-Waste Derived Bio-Ethanol Production and Bioelectricity Generation as Renewable Energy

Abstract

Bio-waste from food industry is a significant component to pollute the environment. Bioproducts like biomaterials, biofuel can be produced from biowaste and pollution can be reduced. The study was conducted to evaluate the quality of bioethanol production and investigate the bioethanol for bioelectricity generation using rambutan fruit biowaste. Bioethanol yield was the highest in 2 days incubation period of fermentation. The highest bioethanol yield was found at 30°C having pH 5.0 compared to the 28 and 35°C. With enzymatic hydrolysis, yeast exhibited more effective as compare to the amylase and cellulose for producing bioethanol. However, the glucose content was lowest in the bioethanol produced at 2 days incubation period. In addition, viscosity and acid value were exhibited well at 2 days incubation period followed by the ASTM standards. Similarly, the metal element contents (P, Ca, Si, Fe, Cu and Pb) were found satisfactory within the limit of the ASTM standards. The Si, Cu and Pb showed the value zero which was of good for energy generation. Bioelectricity represented by Voltage (mV) using bioethanol was monitored in fuel cell and found the Voltage (269.23 and 233.84 mV) at 100% ethanol and 100% bioethanol. The rotation of the fan in the fuel cell was observed and exhibited 510 and 450 RPM at 100% ethanol and 100% bioethanol. Voltage decreased while incubation time increased in bioethanol based fuel cell. Therefore, it was found from the results that bioethanol produced was of good quality where conversion rate was 97.2% and optimized at 30°C having pH 5.0, 2 days incubation period and 4g/l yeast concentration as well as bioelectricity represented by voltage (mV) was generated successfully using the bioethanol produced and fuel cell as an innovative technology in the field of renewable energy.