Preparation and Characterization of Polyvinyl Chloride/Polymethyl- Methacrylate/Graphite [PVC/PMMA/G] Membrane Used for the Purification of the Bioethanol Produced from the Hydrolysis and Fermentation of Rice waste

Rice waste as a starchy food waste that is discharged daily into the environment in huge amounts has been used as a valuable source for the production of bioethanol. The tested parameters investigated that phosphoric acid as a chemical representative combined with autoclaving as a physical representative are the most potent conditions for the liberation of glucose units from the starch molecules among other tested conditions. The optimization process revealed that the maximum production of simple sugars of 12.39 mg/ml from rice waste can be obtained through the pre-treatment of 5% rice waste with 20% H3PO4 and autoclaving followed by the amylase hydrolysis. These liberated glucose units have been successfully fermented into 5.2 mg/ml bioethanol using a yeast strain (Pichia nakasei with the accession number OK092294). The separation of the produced bioethanol from other media components was performed via amicon cell ultrafiltration system integrated with polymeric membrane. The membrane was prepared from Polyvinyl chloride/Polymethylmethacrylate/ Graphite [PVC/PMMA/G] with different thicknesses 400, 500 and 600 mu m. For membrane characterization, Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR), scanning electron microscope (SEM), tensile strength, water contact angle, and water and ethanol uptakes have been used. Among the tested membranes thicknesses, the obtained results showed that the best membrane thickness is 500 mu m which recoded 939.526 (mg/m2.h) and 10.557 for flux of permeate and separation factor, respectively.