Amberlyst™-15 Catalyzed Hydrolysis of Mango Peel Waste for Bioethanol Production: HPLC Glucose Quantification and GC-FID Analysis of Ethanol Pre- and Post-Distillation

Mango peel waste appears to be an alternative source to lignocellulose materials to produce bioethanol. According to various studies, mango peels are rich in carbohydrates and sugar, which are suitable for generating bioethanol. Today, gasoline, a non-renewable fuel, is massively utilized as a transport fuel. Accordingly, a large amount of bioethanol will have to be generated to replace gasoline. The objectives of this research are to produce bioethanol from mango peel using Amberlyst-15 at various concentrations, characterize the bioethanol, and compare its concentration before and after distillation. For the first time, Amberlyst-15 has been explored as a potential catalyst for hydrolyzing carbohydrates in mango peel to monomeric sugar before the fermentation process. One crucial parameter, which was catalyst concentration (2–4%, w/v), was studied for process optimization. In particular, optimum glucose yield of 23.03 ± 3.64% (High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC)) and 24.64 ± 0% (Blood Glucose Meter (BGM)) was attained based on the following optimum condition: catalyst concentration of 4% (w/v). Meanwhile, the bioethanol was not detected by Gas Chromatography Flame Ionization Detector (GC-FID) after fermentation. However, after distillation, the fermented sample yielded a bioethanol concentration of 4.152 g/L. Overall, the strategy of combining heterogeneous-catalytic hydrolysis and fermentation with Saccharomyces cerevisiae has been a good strategy for producing bioethanol from mango peel biomass.