Ethanol Production from Screened Kitchen Food Wastes

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Abstract

Kitchen wastes are generated daily in several households and form the bulk of municipal waste. A good portion of kitchen waste is made up of carbohydrate food materials such as pieces and leftovers of bread, yam, rice, ‘eba’, noodles, etc. Carbohydrate materials can be readily converted to ethanol via hydrolysis and further fermentation. In this work, kitchen wastes from several households were collected and screened for their carbohydrate portions. 1kg carbohydrate portion of the screened wastes was hydrolyzed enzymatically using amylase to yield 44% w/w fermentable sugar substrates. Subsequent fermentation of the sugar substrates using yeast yielded 14% v/v ethanol, whereupon distillation brought the percentage of ethanol produced to 95% v/v. The total yield of ethanol derived from 1kg of screened kitchen wastes was estimated to be 0.31 L. Rather than being a nuisance to the environment, the carbohydrate portion of kitchen wastes can be converted to a more profitable ethanol which has diverse applications

Keywords: Kitchen wastes, Ethanol Carbohydrate, Hydrolysis,,

References