Maize is the most abundant cereal grown in Ghana and is accompanied by enormous amount of maize agrowastes. This waste which is currently underutilized can be used to produce bioethanol. Saccharification of lignocellulosic materials into simple sugars is a crucial and costly step towards bio-ethanol production from them. This work isolated cellulolytic fungi from soil sampled from Ejura farms which can efficiently hydrolyse maize agrowastes. Ten of the isolates exhibited cellulase activities when screened on Mandel's agar media. Aspergillus niger had the highest significant filter paper activity, carboxymethyl cellulose activity and protein concentration of 0.37 FPU/ml 0.7025 U/ml and 5.62 mg/ml respectively when the cellulolytic isolates were assayed on corncob based broth media.

This study investigated the potential of pito mash (waste from sorghum brewing) as alternative and cost-effective feedstock for bioethanol production by means of fermentation using Zymomonas mobilis and Saccharomyces cerevisiae isolated from freshly tapped palm wine. Fermentation parameters such as pH, temperature and incubation period were studied. The fermentation microbes, Z. mobilis and S. cerevisiae were identified using API TM test kit and morphological characteristics, respectively. Analysis of reducing sugar residue was performed using dinitrosalicylic acid (DNS) method, while analysis of ethanol content was performed using gas chromatography. Pito mash recorded total starch content of 6.69%, reducing sugar content of 11.1 mg ml-1 and cellulose content of 0.41 mg g-1. Saccharification by malting increased reducing sugar content by 77.9% (19.75 mg ml-1). The optimum fermentation conditions (pH, temperature and incubation period) for Z. mobilis and S. cerevisiae were 5.5, 35°C, 3 days and 6.0, 30°C, 4 day, respectively. The maximum ethanol yield of 3.03 g l-1 and efficiency of 62% were obtained for S. cerevisiae while yield of 3.63 g l-1 and efficiency of 74.2% were obtained for Z. mobilis. Z. mobilis conclusively may be better organism for ethanol production from pito mash.

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