A mathematical modelling framework for quantifying production of biofuel from waste banana

Abstract

Wide-scale implementations or industrial-scale productions of biofuels from food/fruit waste are insufficient. One of the major reasons of wider implementations is lack of confidence on potential outcomes and subsequent monetary benefit. A mathematical model can provide estimations of potential biofuel generation capability under different input conditions. This paper presents a mathematical modelling framework for the estimation of bioethanol production potential from waste/rotten banana. A simple mathematical formulation comprised of three contributing factors such as shaking hour, temperature and water content is proposed. The factors were derived based on an earlier experimental study on production of bioethanol from waste banana. Results from the proposed mathematical model were compared with the experimental measurements. It is found that the proposed model is capable to estimate potential bioethanol productions from waste banana with very good accuracy achieving a coefficient of correlation of 0.995. Standard errors of the model’s estimations are RMSE = 0.08, MAE = 0.06 and RAE = 0.01. Finally, to facilitate proper estimations of benefit–cost ratio, a mathematical framework is proposed. For industry-scale implementations of biofuel generation, such modelling framework is useful for the decision makers on deciding optimum input parameters through optimised energy consumption, which will ultimately render monetary benefits from such production. Similar mathematical framework can be adopted for such biofuel production from other fruit/food waste.