Kinetic and Optimization Studies on Ethanol Production from Corn Flour

Studies on Simultaneous Saccharification and Fermentation (SSF) of corn flour, a major agricultural product as the substrate using starch digesting glucoamylase enzyme derived from Aspergillus niger and non starch digesting and sugar fermenting Saccharomyces cerevisiae in a batch fermentation. Experiments based on Central Composite Design (CCD) were conducted to study the effect of substrate concentration, pH, temperature, enzyme concentration on Ethanol Concentration and the above parameters were optimized using Response Surface Methodology (RSM). The optimum values of substrate concentration, pH, temperature and enzyme concentration were found to be 160 g/l, 5.5, 30°C and 50 IU respectively. The effect of inoculums age on ethanol concentration was also investigated. The corn flour solution equivalent to 16% initial starch concentration gave the highest ethanol concentration of 63.04 g/l after 48 h of fermentation at optimum conditions of pH and temperature. Monod model and Logistic model were used for growth kinetics and Leudeking – Piret model was used for product formation kinetics. Keywords—Simultaneous Saccharification and Fermentation (SSF), Corn Starch, Ethanol, Logisitic Model.