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Processing of spoilt wheat into an additive for maximization of ethanol production

KrishiKosh

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Title Processing of spoilt wheat into an additive for maximization of ethanol production
 
Creator Swami, Urvashi
 
Contributor Dhamija, S.S.
 
Subject alcohols, wheats, extraction, productivity, fermentation, concentrates, yeasts, irrigation, grain, additives
 
Description It is no secret that ethanol is an important chemical with uses such as a feedstock for chemical and
beverage industries and an additive to fuel for automobiles. Over the years, its demand in general, has
been on an increase and India is no exception. Clearly, maximization of ethanol production becomes
imperative and could be achieved by considering, among others, the addition of yeast nutrients to the
fermentation liquor. In the Indian alcohol industry, N and P, the commonly used nutrients are sourced
from chemical fertilizers, which do have a certain carbon footprint. Ideally, organic/ renewable yeast
nutrients would be more suitable, as they have a low net green house gas emission. However, so far, no
dedicated formulation is available on the Indian market. On the other hand, spoilt wheat which ferments
faster than its normal version, due to the presence of amino acids, minerals, small molecular weight
peptides etc, is able to expedite the fermentation of other raw materials as well. Obviously, it offers the
potential for retrieval of its ethanol-expediting yeast nutrients which are water-soluble, renewable and
less polluting. Efforts were, therefore, made to recover this ethanol-expediting nutrient activity from
liberally available spoilt wheat grains and concentrate the same so as to transform it into a potentially
marketable additive.
Spoilt wheat sample tested positive for ethanol-expediting activity as addition of its aqueous
extracts (20ml) from 40% slurry of grains and powder to 30% normal wheat powder produced 10.5%,
12.2% ethanol (v/v), respectively. Partial sterilization of extracts at 85-90oCfor 30 minutes seemed to
have little effect on the thermostability of the activity, as 10.2% and 11.9% (v/v) ethanol, respectively,
were still produced. As against this, the complete sterilization at 15lbs for 15 minutes reduced the
activity correspondingly to 9.4% and 10.4% (v/v) ethanol.
To explore the ability of the extract to concentrate its ethanol-expediting activity, 20% extract
was loaded into the slightly modified domestic R.O. system. Analysis of the retentaie (reject) ought to
be containing the concentrated activity, which was successively reloaded into the R.O. system, revealed
that the incremental concentration of TDS over various rounds wasn’t as effective as expected and
reached a maximum value of 3600 at the end of 6th round from an initial value of 3000 ppm.
Correspondingly, ethanol-expediting activity measured in terms of ethanol production also didn’t
register an appreciable increase, achieving a value of 12.3% (v/v) ethanol at the end of 6th round as
compared to 11.0% ethanol initially. However, this finding signals that domestic R.O. system in its
present form does concentrate the activity, but in a manner which is economically non-viable. It would,
therefore, be reasonable to presume that the domestic R.O. system with larger R.O. columns which
would obviously have larger membrane surface area, if used in series might produce larger volumes of
the penneate and thereby lead to the concentration of the retentaie. Partial sterilization at 85-90oCfor 30
min improved the shelf life of retentaie which failed to detect any mycotoxins otherwise present in
spoilt wheat.
 
Date 2016-11-10T10:24:35Z
2016-11-10T10:24:35Z
2011
 
Type Thesis
 
Identifier http://krishikosh.egranth.ac.in/handle/1/84801
 
Language en
 
Format application/pdf
 
Publisher CCSHAU