For the citrus processing industry the disposal of fresh peels has become a major concern for manyfactories. Orange peels are the major solid by-product. Dried orange peels have a high content ofpectin, cellulose and hemicellulose, which make it suitable as fermentation substrate when hydrolyzed.The present work aims at utilizing orange peels for the production of ethanol by using the fungusMucor indicus. Hence, producing a valuable product from the orange peel waste. The biomass growthwas also examined, since the biomass of the fungus can be processed into chitosan, which also is avaluable material.The work was first focused on examining the fungus ability to assimilate galacturonic acid and severalother sugars present in orange peel hydrolyzate (fructose, glucose, galactose, arabionose, and xylose).Fructose and glucose are the sugars which are consumed the fastest whereas arabinose, xylose andgalacturonic acid are assimilated much slower.One problem when using orange peels as raw material is its content of peel oils (mainly D-limonene),which has an immense antimicrobial effect on many microorganism even at low concentrations. Inorder to study M. indicus sensitivity to peel oil the fungus was grown in medium containing differentconcentrations of D-limonene.At very low limonene concentrations the fungal growth was delayed only modestly, hence a couple ofhours when starting from spores and almost nothing when starting with biomass. Increasing theconcentration to 0.25% (v/v) and above halted the growth to a large extent. However, the fungus wasable to grow even at a limonene concentration of 1.0%, although, at very reduced rate. Cultivationsstarted from spore-solution were more sensitive than those started with biomass.Orange peels were hydrolyzed by two different methods to fermentable sugars, namely by dilute acidhydrolysis (0.5% (v/v) H2SO4) at 150 °C and by enzymatic hydrolysis by cellulase, pectinase and β-glucosidase. The fungus was able to produce ethanol with a maximum yield of about 0.36 g/g after 24h when grown on acid hydrolyzed orange peels both by aerobic and anaerobic cultivation. Apreliminary aerobic cultivation on enzymatic hydrolyzed orange peels gave a maximum ethanol yieldof 0.33 g/g after 26 h.The major metabolite produced during the cultivations was ethanol. Apart from ethanol, glycerol wasthe only component produced in significant amounts. In cultivations performed aerobically on acidandenzymatic hydrolyzed orange peels the glycerol yields were 0.048 g/g after 24 h.Two different techniques were also examined in order to evaluate if the methods could be use asbiomass determining methods when solid particles are present in the culture medium. The problemwith solid particles is that they will be buried inside the fungal biomass matrix. Hence makingseparation impossible prior to dry weight determination in the ordinary way. However, none of themethods involving chitin extraction or chitosan extraction did show any good results.The results from the present work are rather clear, M. indicus was able to grow and produce bothethanol and biomass even when limonene was present in the culture medium. The maximum ethanolyield was achieved after about 24 h in cultivations performed on both acid hydrolyzed and enzymatichydrolyzed orange peels. However, in order to say if the method can be applicable at industrial scaleand made economically feasible the subject has to be investigated further.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:hb-19541 |
| Date | January 2009 |
| Creators | Ylitervo, Päivi |
| Publisher | Högskolan i Borås, Institutionen Ingenjörshögskolan, University of Borås/School of Engineering |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
| Relation | Magisteruppsats, |
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