Membrane separation and sonication in bio-ethanol production

Abstract

The importance of biofuels is growing for both environmental and economic point of view. The usage of wastes in bio-ethanol production is investigated in our paper. Cellulose contained wastes i.e. byproduct of tobacco is used for experiments. The paper is focused mainly on the investigation of the enzyme recovery that followed the saccharification process. The membrane filtration combined with sonication was used for enzyme recovery. Our results show that recovered enzyme did not lose its activity. The patterns were originated from fermented solutions made from tobacco byproducts. Based on our results, the ultrasound accompanied by a membrane separation would be a possible and effective operation of bio-ethanol production technology.

The effect of the implementation of ultrasound in enzyme separation

“…Cellulose is the most abundant carbohydrate polymer in wastes from forest products agriculture, fruits, and vegetables [4]. In ethanol production the delignification of cellulose is the basic element following depolymerisation of carbohydrate polymers to free sugars via enzymes and at the end the fermentation of these sugars [5,6,7]. The low hydrolytic conversion rates and the high cost of enzymes which make the implementation of overall process uneconomical are important criteria of producing bioethanol [8,9].…”