Kinetics of ethanol production from carob pods extract by immobilized Saccharomyces cerevisiae cells.

Kinetics of ethanol production from carob pods extract by immobilized S. cerevisiae cells in static and shake flask fermentation have been investigated. Shake flask fermentation proved to be a better fermentation system for the production of ethanol than static fermentation. The optimum values of ethanol concentration, ethanol productivity, ethanol yield, and fermentation efficiency were obtained at pH range 3.5-6.5 and temperature between 30-35 degrees C. A maximum ethanol concentration (65 g/L), ethanol productivity (8.3 g/Lh), ethanol yield (0.44 g/g), and fermentation efficiency (95%) was achieved at an initial sugar concentration of 200, 150, 100, and 200 g/L, respectively. The highest values of specific ethanol production rate and specific sugar uptake rate were obtained at pH 6.5, temperature 40 degrees C, and initial sugar concentration of 100 g/L. Other kinetic parameters, biomass concentration, biomass yield, and specific biomass production rate were maximum at pH 5.5, temperature 30 degrees C, and initial sugar concentration 150 g/L. Under the same fermentation conditions non-sterilized carob pod extract gave higher ethanol concentration than sterilized medium. In repeated batch fermentations, the immobilized S. cerevisiae cells in Ca-alginate beads retained their ability to produce ethanol for 5 d.