Patent ID: 6420146
Filing Date: 2002-07-16
Classification: C12N,C12P,Y02E

Abstract:
A process for enhancing the production of ethanol comprising:(a) culturing yeast Sacchromyces ssp. in a growth medium; (b) separating the yeast from the growth medium and immobilizing the yeast using an aqueous natural polymer solution to obtain immobilized yeast beads; (c) separating the immobilized yeast beads from the aqueous natural polymer solution and dehydrating the immobilized yeast beads at a temperature ranging from 24-36Â° C. for a period of 2-20 hours to obtain stable yeast crystals having a moisture content ranging between 5-30%; (d) adding the stable yeast crystals to a 5-8% molasses solution and incubating the stable yeast crystals for a period ranging between 6-48 hours at a temperature ranging between 24-32Â° C. to obtain activated stable yeast crystals; and (e) separating the activated stable yeast crystals from the molasses solution by conventional methods, incubating in a fermentation broth the activated stable yeast crystals in an amount between 0.2 to 5% of the volume of the fermentation broth and recovering ethanol from the fermentation broth by known methods; wherein the fermentation broth contains molasses having a total reducing sugar concentration ranging between 10-30%.