Enhancing the silica-magnetic catalyst-assisted bioethanol production from biowaste via ultrasonics

The current study describes the fabrication of nano-catalyst by embedding the magnetic nanoparticles as a core in silica shell to obtain the structure of Fe3O4@SiO2 and then functionalized with sulfonyl groups. The intrinsic properties of nano-catalysts were scrutinized for morphological, crystal structure, elemental and chemical bonding analysis using SEM, XRD, EDS and FT-IR, respectively. The acid density and saturation magnetization were observed to be 0.20 mmol g-1 and 56 emu g-1, respectively. In this study, banana peel waste was pre-treated and hydrolyzed into total reducing the sugar by sulfonated silica magnetic catalyst. A single-factor optimization method has also been used to investigate the influence of catalyst/solid quantity, reaction temperature and time on reducing sugar. The optimum sugar-reducing yield of about 73% was achieved with 0.3% (w/v) of catalyst loading at 140 degrees C for 2 h. In addition, the spent sulfonated silica catalyst was regenerated and reused up to 3 times. The fermentation by Saccharomyces cerevisiae was conducted with banana peel hydrolysate, and fermentation efficiency reached 83% after 48 h.

Automated summary

The current study describes the fabrication of a nano-catalyst by embedding magnetic nanoparticles in a silica shell and functionalizing it with sulfonyl groups. The characteristics and performance of the nano-catalyst were investigated using various analysis methods. The study also found that the catalyst could efficiently convert banana peel waste into reducing sugar, and the catalyst could be reused. Furthermore, the fermentation efficiency of banana peel hydrolysate reached 83%.