European Journal of Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences

OPTIMIZATION OF ALCOHOL PRODUCTION USING INVERTASE PRODUCING ORGANISMS

Yashar Katouki*

ABSTRACT

Over the past few years, there has been an increasing awareness and acceptance of biofuels as a viable potential substitute for petroleum. Biofuels promise to address some of the growing concerns about our environment, particularly global warming and the harmful effect of green house gases. Industrial grade ethanol is produced in India exclusively through the fermentation of sugar cane molasses using yeasts. Improvement in such a route of molasses utilization is realized mainly through enhancement in volumetric productivity and conversion efficiency at adequately high product concentrations. Accelerated ethanolic fermentation eliminates the chances of bacterial contamination which is major problem faced in the alcohol industry. Invertase hydrolyses the O-glycosyl bond forming an equimolar mixture of glucose and fructose (invert syrup) from sucrose. The invert syrup has desirable properties like high solubility and hygroscopic nature. The simple sugars, glucose and fructose directly enter fermentative pathway shortening the time for alcohol production. Screening of yeast for hyper invertase production from various natural sources rich in sucrose had been performed. They have also been screened for osmotolerance and alcohol production.

Keywords: ethanolic, Invertase, O-glycosyl, equimolar and osmotolerance.