Improvement of ethanol production from sugarcane molasses through enhanced nutrient supplementation using Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Saccharomyces cerevisiae as a yeast cream was utilized for alcoholic fermentation using sugar cane \nmolasses. In the present study, fermentation was optimized for urea and yeast hydrolysate (YH) dosage \nand the combined effect was evaluated. Total sugars as inverts (TSAI) composition of molasses were \n-1 \ndetermined by HPLC as 39% (m/v). Urea concentrations of 4, 2 and 3 gl showed optimal ethanol \n-1 \nproduction at 30, 35 and 40°C respectively. A YH concentration of 0.5 gl resulted in an ethanol yield of \n8.7% (m/v) with a fermentation efficiency of 85.12%. Under optimized conditions (35°C) significant \nimprovements were noticed with ethanol yield of 7.8% (m/v) and efficiency of 76.3%.