Feasibility Study of Mahua (Madhuca Indica) Fruit Pulp as a Feedstock for Bio-Alcohol Industry

Abstract

Abstract

For a developing nation like India, adequate sources of energy are basic requirement. As fossil fuels are depleting day by day, the necessity of renewable energy sources is increasing rapidly. Apart from that, burning of fossil fuels is polluting our environment drastically and increasing the threat of global warming. Thus, there is a need to adopt a cleaner and renewable source of energy. Among the different sources of energy, bioalcohol is a good and cleaner source of energy, which could be obtained by fermentation of biomass containing starch and glucose present in the biomass. This study presents production of bioethanol from Mahua (Madhuca Indica) fruit pulp in submerged fermentation (SmF) using jaggery and yeast. The change in bioalcohol production by changing the fermentation period was studied, using both yeast and jaggery. The result shows that Mahua fruit pulp, which can be obtained from any part of India, proved to be cheap and suitable substrate for bioalcohol production. The result shows that Mahua fruit pulp could be converted in to bioalcohol by farmer itself using jaggery as an additive. Although production of bioalcohol using jaggery as an additive is about 16% less compared to yeast, however, at former level, it would be economical as all the raw material and additive are available at the farm itself. The energy content of bioalcohol (28.52MJkg ^̶1) was found at par to the pure bioalcohol (29.6MJkg ^̶1).

Keywords: Mahua fruit pulp, fermentation, jaggery, yeast, bioalcohol, energy content

Cite this Article

Singh RN, Jagdish Damor. Feasibility Study of Mahua (Madhuca Indica) Fruit Pulp as a Feedstock for Bioalcohol Industry. Journal of Alternate Energy Sources and Technologies. 2019; 10(1): 32–35p.