Ethanol production from discarded Cucumis melo “melon” of La Hermelinda Market. Trujillo. Perú

Abstract

Objective: To evaluate the performance of ethanol production from discarded melon from La Hermelinda market of Trujillo city. Materials and Methods: A non-experimental, simple and cross-sectional descriptive design was used, in a sample of 50 kg of discarded melon, which was the most abundant fruit of the season. After the selection and cleaning of the fruits, 34,450 kg of pulp were obtained, which produced 17 liters of juice with 8.5 ° Brix and pH 4.0. The melon juice was supplemented with 1.03 kg of domestic sugar, to raise 13 °Brix, and it was disinfected with sodium bisulfite. The fermentation process was carried out at room temperature (20 ± 2 ° C) under anaerobic conditions, for 10 days with Saccharomyces cerevisiae culture. Results: 14 liters of fermented must were obtained, from which one liter was taken for distillation following two procedures: A, carried out at 87 ° C, 1 atm of pressure, for two hours, and B at 85 ° C, 1.5 atm, for three hours. To compare the means of the ethanol obtained by distillation, the Student's t test was applied with 95% confidence, it was obtained a p value of 0.103, which indicates that there is
no difference in the production of the volume of ethanol in both processes, however, there is significant difference in ethanol concentration (p <0.001), obtained in process B (66%). Conclusions: It is concluded that discard melon is a good alternative for ethanol production with an average yield of 1864.28 liters of ethanol / ton of melon.
Keywords: Discard fruit, ethanol, yeast, fermentation (ERIC 4097), market.