Production of Bioethanol from Date Palm Frond (DPF): Influence of Process Parameters

Bioethanol is biodegradable and the most used biofuel to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. To date, mass production of bioethanol is mainly from sugarcane, cassava, corn, and oil palm frond. Therefore, this paper was aimed at producing bioethanol from date palm frond (DPF) and to study the effect of some critical parameters such as temperature, fermentation period and pH for optimum bioethanol yield. Saccharomyces cerevisiae was used based on its ability to ferment the date palm frond efficiently. Pre-treatment processes of DPF was done followed by hydrolysis process of the cellulose to fermentable sugars and finally the fermentation of sugars to alcohol. The results showed that at lower temperature, the fermentation is very slow. As the temperature increased, the bioethanol yield increased. However, as the temperature increases, particularly, above 35℃, the bioethanol yield decrease because of intercellular changes in the yeast cells, which slow the yield of bioethanol produced. Hence, at a temperature of 35℃ higher yield bioethanol was achieved. Similarly, increase in fermentation period at constant temperature increased the bioethanol yield. At every pH value and at constant optimum fermentation period (72 h), the highest bioethanol yield achieved (6.85g/L). Therefore, the optimum pH that produced the highest yield was 5.5 (6.85 g/L)