Bioethanol Production from Wastes: An Experimental Evaluating Study for Iran

Abstract

Energy crisis in the world motivates countries to hire new and renewable energies. One of the main and valuable renewable sources of energy is agricultural waste. This is widely disposed of through the world during the harvest, packing, and transportation. In many countries, agricultural waste is considerably weighty. Nonetheless, most of that is used for animal feed or herbal fertilizer and no useful value is added. Despite its location in an arid region, Iran produces various citrus, cereals, and vegetables in high tonnage. The waste of the agricultural product, especially those disposed of by the food processing industries, such as fruit juice factories, remains also useless. The potential of the residues to extract biofuel is investigated in the current experimental study. Six samples of abundant agricultural products in Iran are chosen: sugarcane, grape, potato, orange peel, date, and mulberry. The processes of pretreatment, hydrolysis, and fermentation are performed and the extracted juice is directed to the distiller to gather bioethanol. To evaluate the distilled juice purity, a gas chromatography test is carried out. It is shown that date and mulberry can produce a maximum of 29.5 and 23 ml (ethanol)/100 g (dry waste) as the most efficient agricultural products.