Continuous ethanol production from Nigerian cane-sugar molasses

The fermentation of carbohydrate sources into ethanol has become increasingly important to both industrialized and developing countries, because of its numerous uses and the need to produce it from renewable resources. In a developing tropical country such as Nigeria, proliferation of microbial life due to the hot climate, and lack of the technical know-how to maintain commercially available plants have created the need to look inwards in order to design and realize simple processes and units from local inputs. The inputs are the microorganism, sugar source, and fermentation system. In this project, high ethanol yielding microorganisms (yeast and bacteria) were isolated from local alcoholic beverages, characterized and used to ferment suitably clarified molasses. Cell immobilized, fixed-bed fermentation system was found most suitable for the tropics [continued]…