Bioethanol Production from Empty Fruit Bunch using Direct Fermentation by an Actinomycete Streptosporangium roseum

Study on the production of bioethanol using palm oil empty fruit bunch (EFB) has been performed using actinomycete Streptosporangium roseum. Positive result of bioethanol production was recorded using Iodoform test followed by confirmation with GC-FID using a polar capillary column (PEG-type, 10m x 0.53, with autosampler) and n-propanol as internal standard. The first and second round distillation has produced azeotrope (85-15% ethanol-water) and the third round has concentrated the ethanol to 96.1%. Therefore, the process was accomplished by using molecular sieves that selectively absorbed the final excess water. Direct fermentation using Streptosporangium roseum has shown to be a very potential way to catalyst for the synthesis of bioethanol from EFB.