ABSTRACT:
Bioethanol is most widely used biofuel in the transportation sector as solely or blended with gasoline. It is produced from carbohydrate substrate through microbial bioconversion. Lignocellulosic substrate is most abundantly found carbohydrate source in the earth for bioethanol production. Fermentation process mainly depends upon the microbial capability to utilize both pentose and hexose sugars found in the lignocellulosic substrate. Deoiled rice bran (DORB) is a lignocellulosic industrial waste obtained from oil refinery after the extraction of oil from rice bran. In this work, microbial co-cultures were performed to ferment DORB for bioethanol in batch culture. Co-culturing of Klebsiella oxytoca ATCC 13182 with Zymomonas mobilis MTCC 92 produced 74.9 g/l of bioethanol from DORB estimated by Specific gravity method. The results indicated that co-culturing of Klebsiella oxytoca ATCC 13182 with Zymomonas mobilis MTCC 92 increases the production of bioethanol as compared to monoculture of Klebsiella oxytoca ATCC 13182 and co-culturing of Saccharomyces cerevisae MTCC 4780. Therefore, this work would help for commercial production of bioethanol from abundantly found DORB in a cost effective manner. This will definitely reduce the dependency on foreign countries for fossil fuel.