Production of Ethanol from Quetta Pinus halepensis by Fermentation

Abstract

Pinus halepensis is wasted in large amount in Quetta, Pakistan. The direct discharge of Pinus halepensis enhances environmental pollution so it is urgent demand to treat this waste Pinus halepensis in such a way to produce beneficial products and reduce the environmental impacts. In this work Pinus halepensis are first crushed in jaw crusher to a size of 212 µm (65 mesh number) and 600 µm (28 mesh number) Tyler sieve standard. The crushed powder is then converted into brix by H 2 SO 4 (1N) hydrolysis at 363.15 K. The brix are then converted into ethanol by fermentation. During the experiments acid hydrolysis and various parameters such as pH of Pinus halepensis solutions, sugar brix, specific gravity of Pinus halepensis solutions and fermentation time were studied. The best conversion of Pinus halepensis to ethanol has been recorded at 4.5 pH. The statistical analysis was carried out in order to study the percentage contribution of different parameters and their effect on the production of ethanol.