Bioethanol Production from Oil Palm Empty Fruit Bunches Using Saccharomyces cerevisiae Immobilized on Sodium Alginate Beads

Bioethanol is an environmentally benign renewable energy commonly obtained from glucose fermentation using Saccharomyces cerevisiae. The purposes of this study are to investigate the effects of time, temperature, pH, immobilized yeast cell loading, beads reuse during ethanol production through batch fermentation of glucose derived from oil palm empty fruit bunches by S. cerevisiae immobilized on Na-alginate beads and to compare the performance of fermentation using immobilized yeast cells and that of using a free cell system. The results revealed that time, temperature, pH, yeast mass and beads reuse significantly affected the ethanol and final glucose concentrations. As expected, a maximum ethanol concentration was obtained from fermentation using immobilized yeast cells at 30 °C, pH 5, and immobilized yeast cell loading of 0.75 g for 48 hours. However, fermentation with a free cell system at the same conditions resulted in lower ethanol yield. The highest ethanol concentration of 88.125 g/L with a productivity of 1.84 g/L·h was achieved from the second cycle fermentation using of immobilized cells beads. The results suggest that an immobilized cell system exhibits great potential applications for improved ethanol production due to its ability to sustain the stability of cell activity, reduce contamination tendency, and protect yeast cells from any possible inhibitions.