PADDY STRAW: A SOURCE FOR BIOETHANOL PRODUCTION AND COMPOST FORMATIONManish Sakhlecha and Toshan Singh RathoreAbstract Agricultural wastes contains lignocellulosic compound that serves as an attractive feed stocks for bioethanol production. It has several characteristics such as high content of cellulose and hemicelluloses that can be readily hydrolysed into fermentable sugars. A simple process (saccharification and fermentation) to produce ethanol from paddy straw was developed in order to establish an efficient bioethanol production. Also, the maximum ethanol concentration and ethanol yield from paddy straw were 69 and 60%, respectively. Nevertheless, the direct saccharification and fermentation shows the potential for lower cost and higher efficiency for bioethanol production. Further, an aerobic composting of spent wash obtained as the distillation waste from the ethanol generation process was performed by mixing it with 6 kg of press mud and 2 kg of bagasse along with total 6 liters of spent wash during the composting period. The samples of composting mass were analyzed for pH, moisture content, temperature, organic carbon, nitrogen, COD, chlorides and conductivity. The percentage of Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Potassium were 2.42, 0.80 and 4.29 respectively. The values of parameters analyzed were quite comparable to a good quality compost. The utilization of rice straw for bioethanol production requires the production technology to be cost-effective and environmentally sustainable. Biological conversion of straw into fermentable sugars, employing hydrolysing enzymes is at present the most attractive alter-native and requires the involvement of the government by issuing supporting energy policies |