International Journal of Scientific Research and Reviews Bioethanol Production from Leather Solid Waste through Anaerobic Digestion Corresponding Author

ABSTRACT Leather industry is one of the oldest cottage industries in India. Although tanning has been in existence for a long time, the problem of environment pollution received serious consideration only in recent years. The leather industry produces a significant amount of chromium bearing hazardous waste. This work has two aspects one is the management of such huge generation and another is the production of energy in terms of Bioethanol. On production of biofuel in the form of ethanol from tannery solid wastes was made using selective anaerobic microorganism isolated form rumen. Chromium is present at the chemical composition of solid wastes and the protein concentration was at higher percentage (79%) followed by fat (7.57%). The screened microorganism was subjected for zymogram and the different bands were found on SDS-PAGE and on compared with standard collagenase bands, it was confirmed the production of collagenase enzyme from anaerobic microorganism. In the Anaerobic digestion of formic, acetic and propionic acid, production of ethanol was observed only with the acetic acid and with not formic and propionic acid. Volatile fatty acids production determines the rate of ethanol production; it was found that after 48 hours of incubation, more than 75 % of substrate reduced. The maximum yield of ethanol was observed after 48 hours of incubation. It was found that maximum ethanol was produced with digestion of 0.30gram of substrate and concentration of ethanol is 3.53 g/lit. This work can solve the problems of leather waste management as well as bring the fulfillment of energy requirement in terms of Bioethanol