Production of Bioethanol Fuel from Low-Grade-Date Extract

Experiments on production of bioethanol through anaerobic fermentation of sugars extracted from low-quality dates using a wild strain of Saccharomyces cerevisiae were conducted at 30C and 33C. The effect of the pH during fermentation was insignificant at the operating temperatures.The average ethanol yield for all experiments was greater than 71% of its theoretical value. Experiments in a 1L volume fermentor at 30C and 120 rpm without controlling the pH during fermentation gave ethanol yields of 91.3%, 68.7% and 54.8 % for the 10, 15 and 20% initial sugar concentrations, respectively. The drop in ethanol yield for 20% sugars could be attributed to probable ethanol inhibition