Chemical Composition of the Cashew Apple Bagasse and Potential Use for Ethanol Production

Abstract

On the world scene, the energy requirements are mainly based on fossil fuels, however, these compounds reserves are finite and their exploitation has caused serious environmental problems. As a consequence, the demand for alternative renewable sources has been intensified in substitution the rising demand for energy and raw materials. The biomass is emerging as one of the few sources that have potential to meet these challenges of sustainability, as is currently the largest energy resource in the world, and only carbon-rich material available on the planet, apart from fossils. Form, the cashew crop has great potential for technological development of alternative sources of energy, from its industrial waste processing cashew adding value to the product. In this sense, this paper aims to study the characterization of the cashew apple bagasse and to verify (by acid prehydrolysis) the potential of this material for ethanol production. Initially it was carried out physicochemical characterization of cashew bagasse used (pH, moisture content, soluble solids, sugars, cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin). Following it was carried prehydrolysis at 105˚C for 1 h to obtain fermentable sugars. Analyses of the samples were carried out on HPLC the results showed the saccharification of biomass with glucose (1537.49 mg/L), xylose (3823.22 mg/L) and arabinose (7131.11 mg/L) as well as the capacity of the biomass for ethanol production.