Journals Proceedings

Abstract

One of the major fields of Bioscience Engineering application is biomass production and utilisation. Increasing the rate of the biomass production has raised the need for the development of the new efficient low cost techniques for the bio-waste management. Nowadays this became an emerging issue not only for a municipal environment but also for the rural conditions. Jatropha cake (JC) is a waste biomass from the biofuel industry which uses an equatorial crop Jatropha curcas Linn as the raw material. The production of JC is significant with no economical profit. Due to its natural toxicity, the high nutritious JC is utilised as a combustion material (fuel). Thermal, chemical and biological methods have been tested as means of the JC detoxification. However, the toxic component, phorbol ester (PE), is known for its stability at high temperatures up to 160 °C. At that level the heat treatment can have a negative effect on the nutritious content of JC. Utilisation of solvents to reduce PE content requires additional steps for the solvent regeneration in which leads to the increase of production cost. The long time factor of the detoxification process is seen as the main drawback of the biological approach in reducing PE. In this paper the experimental data on the development of the new JC detoxification approach with application of micro bubbles enhanced ozonolysis technique is presented. Issues concerning efficiency of the ozone application for the PE detoxification in the Ghanaian Jatropha cake and ozone driven protein degradation are discussed. It was shown that at optimized operating conditions the protein content in the detoxified JC was reduced by 30% of its original level and the treated waste JC could be used as a fish and cattle feed.