ISSN 2736-1756
Advanced Journal of Microbiology Research Vol. 2012
Available online at http://internationalscholarsjournals.org/journal/ajmr
© 2012 International Scholars Journals
Full Length Research Paper
Ethanol production from the water hyacinth Eichhornia crassipes by yeast isolated from various hydrospheres
GO. Ogawa Masami, IshidaYukinari Usui and Naoto Urano*
Laboratory of Marine Biochemistry, Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology, Konan, Minato, Tokyo, 108-8477, Japan.
Accepted 18 December, 2011
Abstract
Water hyacinth is a promising plant for the production of bioethanol. The water hyacinth was saccharified with diluted sulfuric acid and fermented to ethanol by yeast obtained from different hydrospheres. We found that the best conditions for water hyacinth hydrolysis were 1% (v/v) sulfuric acid at 121oC for 1 h. In the next step, we searched for yeast that could produce ethanol from the water hyacinth hydrolysate. For this, 624 strains were isolated from 28 bodies of water. Strain 484 produced 22.4 ml of ethanol/kg of dried water hyacinth, which suggests that it may be an efficient producer of bioethanol. Through sequence analysis, we identified strain 484 as Candida intermedia.
Key words: biomass, ethanol, fermentation, hydrospheres, water hyacinth, yeast.