Pollution Research Paper

Vol 39, Issue 2, 2020; Page No.(372-377 )

THE REDUCTION OF HCN CONTENTS AND WATER USE OF TACCA LEONTOPETALOIDES UTILIZATION THROUGH ETHANOL PRODUCTION WITH THE POTENTIAL OF DISTILLERY WASTES AS ORGANIC FERTILIZER

GEMILANG LARA UTAMA, ELAZMANAWATI LEMBONG, WAHYU KRISTIAN SUGANDI AND ROOSTITA LOBO BALIA

Abstract

Tacca tuber (Tacca leontopetaloides) is one of the wild plants found in coastal areas and has high carbohydrate potential. Coastal people traditionally processed Tacca into flour which needed washing many times to reduce the HCN contents. High volume of clean water is needed, while the wash-water disposed of is contained HCN residue and risky contaminating the stream. The ethanol production has been chosen as a simple method that can be done traditionally which the resulted products and also the byproducts can be used by the community. Aims of the research were to identify alternative Tacca utilization method in reducing the HCN contents and water use through ethanol production. Two processing methods (i.e.: Tacca flour and ethanol production) compared in water use and HCN contents of the wastes, the research has done experimentally and analyzed descriptively. The results showed that the ethanol-making process could decreased 91.63-95.03% of HCN contents and reduce the water use 40% from the Tacca flour process, with the potential of distillery wastes as an organic fertilizer that contained C of 5.40-51.31%, N of 0.75-0.95%, P2O5 of 0.09-0.80% and K2O of 0.93-2.99%.