Microwave Support of the Alcoholic Fermentation Process of Cyanobacteria Arthrospira platensis

The aim of this study was to determine the effect of thermal hydrolysis on degradation of polysaccharides contained in biomass of cyanobacteria Arthrospira platensis and to assess the effectiveness of ethanol production from pre-conditioned biomass. The study aimed at the selection of the most advantageous parameters of thermo hydrolysis to reach the experiment variant with the best effects, effectiveness of alcohol fermentation. The experiment was divided into two stages; in stage I, the possibility of obtaining fermentable sugars by hydrothermal and treatment of the substrate was tested. Stage II involved an assessment of the effectiveness of the pretreatment methods to produce bioethanol in alcohol fermentation. Yeast used in industrial ethanol production—Saccharomyces cerevisiae As4—was used in the alcohol fermentation. The results have shown that the temperature of 150 °C was the most beneficial for the process of thermohydrolysis. The control substrate yielded 0.49 g/L of bioethanol, the alcohol concentration in the conventionally pre-tretment sample increased by 45%, i.e., to 0.71 g/L, the mash in the microwave-treatment sample contained the highest concentration of alcohol: 0.97 g/L, which is 98% more than in the control mash and 37% more than in the conventionally heated sample