Dates (Phoenix dactylifera L.) are rich in nutritional compounds, particularly in sugars. Sugars offer anaerobic fermentation, used for bioethanol production. Recently, researchers and industrialists finding ways to produce low-cost bioethanol on large scale using agricultural wastes. Date palm residual is the largest agricultural waste in Pakistan, which can be the cheapest source for bioethanol production, whereas the current study was designed to explore the possible utilization and the potential of date palm waste for bioethanol production through Saccharomyces cerevisiae grown in yeast extract, Bacto peptone, and d-glucose medium. The fermentation process resulted in the production of 15% (v/v) ethanol under the optimum condition of an incubation period of 72 hr and three sugars (glucose, fructose, and sucrose) were found in date waste. The functional group of ethanol (C2H5OH) was also found via Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) analysis. Therefore, S. cerevisiae could be recommended for ethanol production due to short fermentation time at 25% inoculum in 30°C and reduced the processing cost. Common date varieties of low market value are a preferred substrate for the process of producing industrial ethanol. Additionally, proximate analysis of date fruit by near-infrared spectroscopy revealed moisture contents (16.84%), crude protein (0.3%), ash (9.8%), crude fat (2.6%), and neutral detergent fibers (13.4%). So, date fruit contains various nutrients for microbial growth for ethanol production.
Keywords: Saccharomyces cerevisiae; bioethanol; date palm waste; fermentation; yeast.
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