Production of Bioethanol Based on Eichhornia crassipes Combined with the Pulp of the Ripe Fruit of Azadirachta indica

The management of invasive plants such as Eichhornia crassipes and the fruits of Azadirachta indica on the banks of the waters of Lake Chad in the Far North of Cameroon remains a challenge to overcome. On the other hand, given the urgency of finding other sources of energy following the scarcity of fossil fuels, it becomes appropriate to turn to renewable energies obtained from lignocellulosic biomasses which constitute an opportunity to be seized as cooking energy. The objective of this study is to determine the ethanoic potential of the biomass of Eichhornia crassipes associated with the pulp of Azadirachta indica. Thus, the production of bioethanol from the biomass of Eichhornia crassipes associated with the pulp of Azadirachta indica was done by biochemical route which results in: physical pretreatment of the raw material, thermo-mechanical pre-hydrolysis chemical, alcoholic fermentation with Lactobacillus fermentum yeast in batch mode and distillation. Measuring the pH and volatile fatty acid (VFA) content in different fermented samples made it possible to determine the optimal conditions for better fermentation. During 135 hours of fermentation, with 1281.25±1.09 ml of initial raw material fermented, it was possible to obtain on average 675.47±1.02 ml/g of hydrated ethanol and 640.62 ±5.07 ml/g of CO2 with an average weight yield of 52.72±3.57%. Thanks to a yeast contribution of 2.5% relative to the dry matter and an L/S ratio = 20, the dosage of the distillate obtained after distillation of the fermented must by the chronometric method made it possible to determine the ethanoic concentration of the solutions studied which is on average 0.94±0.01%V/V of distillate per fermented biomass.