VALORIZATION OF BALANITES AEGYPTIACA FRUITS BY PRODUCTION OF BIOETHANOL: STUDY AND OPTIMIZATION

This work is part of the diversification of renewable energy sources such as biomass. The present research aims to concentrate on the valorization of desert date fruits, i.e. Balanites aegyptiaca. To the best of our knowledge, this plant has never been valorized in Algeria so far. For this, it was decided to choose one part of these fruits, namely the pulp, as a substrate for anaerobic fermentation for the production of bioethanol, which was shown to have a fairly significant added value. The results of the morphological analyses of the fruits of the desert palm indicated that the pulp represents 62.71% of the entire fruit, which is quite encouraging for the completion of the present work. It should be noted that the pulp is the most important ingredient in the fermentation process to produce alcohol. Moreover, the physicochemical characteristics of the raw material showed that the pulp of the fruits of the desert palm tree are rich in sugar, with 59.68% of total sugars and 34.18% of reducing sugars. Note also that these sugars are essential elements for alcoholic fermentation. The results obtained indicated that the optimal dilution of 1/4.4 (g / mL) gives 30% bioethanol (125 g of fruit gives 30 ml of bioethanol with 92° concentration).