Investigation of banana peduncle as a potential biomass for bioethanol production by microwave assisted alkaline pretreatment with lignin recovery and performance evaluation of bioethanol diesel blend

Abstract

India is the fourth-largest energy consumer and a consumer of crude and petroleum newlineproducts. There are several government policies, research groups and start-ups emerging newlineto promote biofuel. India adopted National Policy on Biofuel in December 2009 to newlineachieve a 20% ethanol blend fuel mandate by the end of the year 2017. However, newlinecurrently, we could attain only 5.8% by 2020. This is mainly due to substrate newlineunavailability and product inconsistency. The primary source of ethanol is sugarcane and newlineits bi-products, which are met only during its harvest season. National policy on food newlinesecurity in India does not permit edible crops for fuel production, which can be resolved newlineusing lignocellulose agro-waste generated at the harvest and processing stage. Over 500 newlinemillion tons of agricultural residues are generated every year in India, either burned, newlinedumped or left in the farm field after harvest. These uncontrolled practices release newlinegreenhouse gas emissions due to smoke, anaerobic digestion under humid conditions, and newlineopenly to the environment, causing local, regional, and global threats. These agro-wastes newlineare resources of lignocellulosic components that can be converted to value-added newlinecomponents like cellulose, hemicellulose, lignin, tannin etc. The banana peduncle is newlinecellulose-rich biomass with a wide range of potential in various industry. This cellulose newlinecan be converted to cellulosic ethanol after delignification. newlineIn the present work, microwave irradiation is employed with alkaline assistance newlinefor pretreatment of the banana peduncle for delignification. The delignified substrate is newlinefurther processed for ethanol production by simultaneous hydrolysis and fermentation. newlineThe lignin is recovered by acidification. The ethanol produced is recovered by distillation newlineand purified. The bioethanol recovered is blended with diesel at various concentration, newlineand its properties as a fuel blend are characterised. newline newline