Improvement of Ethanol Production Using Saccharomyces cerevisiae by Enhancement of Biomass and Nutrient Supplementation

Optimization of ethanol production through addition of substratum and protein-lipid additives was studied. Oilseed meal extract was used as protein lipid supplement, while rice husk was used as substratum. The effect of oil seed meal extract and rice husk was observed at varying concentration of medium sugar from 8% to 20%. Of the three oil seed meal extracts used, viz. groundnut, safflower, and sunflower, safflower was found to be most efficient. The use of oilseed meal extract at 4% was found to enhance ethanol production by almost 50% and enhanced sugar tolerance from 8% to 16%. A further increase of almost 48% ethanol was observed on addition of 2 g of rice husk per 100 ml of medium. An increase in cell mass with better sugar attenuation was observed. Further optimization was sought through use of sugarcane juice as the sugar source. While 8.9% ethanol yield with 75% sugar attenuation was observed at 20% sucrose concentration, it was found to increase to 12% (v/v) with almost complete utilization of medium sugar when sugarcane juice was used. Cell weight was also observed to increase by 26%.