The final products of the ethanol industry are alcoholic beverages, industrial ethanol and biofuels. They are produced by the same production process, which includes fermentation and distillation of raw materials which come from plant biomass. At the end of the distillation process a waste effluent is obtained called vinasse or stillage. The direct disposal of stillages on land or in groundwater (rivers, streams or lakes), or even for the direct irrigation of crops, pollutes the environment due to their high organic contents, dissolved solids and many other compounds which are toxic or could be contaminants under certain environmental conditions. This work reviews the characterization of vinasses from different feedstock sources and the main treatments for conditioning the soluble solids of vinasses before their disposal.

The aim of this study was to investigate the potential of the green microalga Chlorella saccharophila as a source of oil for biodiesel production. We evaluated for the first time, the effect of salinity and/or nitrogen depletion (ND) on cell growth, lipid accumulation and lipid profile in this microalga. The fatty acid methyl esters (FAME) identified for C. saccharophila in this study consisted of C-16:0, C-18:0, C-18:1 cis, and C-18:1 trans. Among these, C-18:1 (indicator of biodiesel quality) was the main FAME found, representing approximately 76 and 80% of total FAME under normal and ND growing conditions, respectively. Under a normal growing condition this microalga showed 154.63 mg l(-1) d(-1), 63.33 mg l(-1) d(-1), and 103.73 mg l(-1) of biomass productivity, lipid productivity, and FAME yield, respectively. The higher biomass productivity (159.58 mg l(-1) d(-1)), lipid productivity (99.33 mg l(-1) d(-1)), and FAME yield (315.53 mg l(-1)) were obtained under the ND treatment. In comparison to other related studies, our results suggest that C. saccharophila can be considered as a suitable source of oil for biodiesel production.

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A complete and efficient regeneration protocol was developed for Vanilla planifolia ‘Andrews’, an endangered orchid species that represents an important crop in several tropical countries. Axillary buds excised from the first to the eighth node, considering the first to fourth nodes as “young” (zone 1) and the fifth to eighth as “mature” (zone 2), were cultured on Murashige and Skoog (MS) medium supplemented with 5.73, 7.64, 9.55, or 11.46 μm 6-benzylaminopurine (BA) for shoot induction and in combination with 4.45 μm naphthalene acetic acid (NAA) to induce multiple shoot proliferation. Cytokinin concentration and bud position in the stem had a significant effect on the number of shoots regenerated. The greatest shoot formation per explant, for the two tested zones, was obtained with 9.55 μm BA on MS medium supplemented with 100 mg·L−1 myoinositol, 150 mg·L−1 citric acid, 100 mg·L−1 ascorbic acid, and 20 g·L−1 sucrose. Young buds from zone 1 were able to form an average of 18.5 ± 2.4 shoots per explant, whereas buds from zone 2 induced a maximum of 11.0 ± 1.0 shoots per explant. Plants of 2 to 3 cm height developed a root system in half-strength MS medium supplemented with 0.44 μm NAA and, once they reached 5 cm height on average, were transferred to greenhouse conditions for their acclimatization where a 100% rate survival was achieved. The optimal use of both young and mature buds from each mother plant to induce adventitious shoots permitted a marked increase in the number of shoots per explant. By using all buds from the upper stem part (zone 1 + zone 2) and subculturing every 90 d, the multiplication rate was 1.1 to 1.86 × 105 shoots per bud per year.

BackgroundCarbon sources for biofuel production are wide-ranging and their availability depends on the climate and soil conditions of the land where the production chain is located. Henequen (Agave fourcroydes Lem.) is cultivated in Yucatán, Mexico to produce natural fibers from the leaves, and a juice containing fructans is produced during this process. Fructans can be hydrolyzed to fructose and glucose and metabolized into ethanol by appropriate yeasts. In Mexico, different Agave species provide the carbon source for (distilled and non-distilled) alcoholic beverage production using the stem of the plant, whilst the leaves are discarded. In this work, we investigated the effect of thermal acid and enzymatic hydrolysis of the juice on the amount of reducing sugars released. Growth curves were generated with the yeasts Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Kluyveromyces marxianus and fermentations were then carried out with Kluyveromyces marxianus to determine alcohol yields.ResultsWith thermal acid hydrolysis, the greatest increase in reducing sugars (82.6%) was obtained using 5% H2SO4 at 100°C with a 30 min reaction time. Statistically similar results can be obtained using the same acid concentration at a lower temperature and with a shorter reaction time (60°C, 15 min), or by using 1% H2SO4 at 100°C with a 30 min reaction time. In the case of enzymatic hydrolysis, the use of 5.75, 11.47 and 22.82 U of enzyme did not produce significant differences in the increase in reducing sugars. Although both hydrolysis processes obtained similar results, the difference was observed after fermentation. Ethanol yields were 50.3 ± 4 and 80.04 ± 5.29% of the theoretical yield respectively.ConclusionsFinal reducing sugars concentrations obtained with both thermal acid and enzymatic hydrolysis were similar. Saccharomyces cerevisiae, a good ethanol producer, did not grow in the hydrolysates. Only Kluyveromyces marxianus was able to grow in them, giving a higher ethanol yield with the enzymatic hydrolysate. The leaves account for a non-negligible weight of the total agave plant biomass, so this work complements the knowledge already developed on agave fermentations by making it possible to produce ethanol from almost the entire plant (stem and leaves).