Pemanfaatan Pod Kakao untuk Produksi Etanol melalui Hidrolisis Menggunakan Kapang Aspergillus niger dan Trichoderma viride

Abstract

Indonesia is one of the largest cocoa producing country in the world, and according to harvest data from 2005, Indonesia produces 13% cocoa from the total world cocoa demand. Fresh cocoa fruit consists of 75.50% of the fruit shells, 21.18% of seeds and 2.60% of placenta. Cocoa pod is one of lignoselulosic waste containing of 31.25% cellulose. The cellulose composition large enough to make cocoa pod potential to be processed into ethanol. So far, ethanol production is more focused on raw materials such as cassava, sweet potatoes, sugar cane, sago, and several types of starch which is less effective because these materials compete with food. This research aimed to find out the effects of substrate’s type of cocoa pod, the type of mold, and time of hydrolysis optimized to produce high levels of reducing sugar and producing ethanol from the best hydrolisate. This research were performed into three stages. The first stage was the preliminary stage that includes the characterization of cocoa pods and pretreatment on cocoa pod including reduction in size, degumming, and delignification. The second stage was the hydrolysis of cocoa pod using two types of fungus (Aspergillus niger and Trichoderma viride), two types of substrates (non-delignified and delignified cocoa pods), hydrolysis time (11 days), sampling on days 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, and 11. Last stage was the fermentation using the best hydrolisate, using Saccharomyces cerevisiae culture. This research utilized completely randomized factorial design with three factors and two replications. The first factor was the type of fungus, which consists of two levels of Aspergillus niger and Trichoderma viride. The second factor was the hydrolysis time with 6 degree of day (1, 3, 5, 7, 9, and 11). The third factor was the type of substrate with two levels of the substrate non-delignified and delignified cocoa pods. Material characterization results obtained the cellulose content of cocoa pods is 28.78% (wb), Hemicellulose 8.70% (wb) and 42.90% lignin (wb). After delignification the results obtained cellulose content is 32.23% (wb) and 31.00% lignin (wb). The delignification efficiency was 27,74%. Based on the results of range analysis with α <0.05 at the hydrolysis stage substrate types affected significantly on reducing sugar concentration, whereas the type of fungus and hydrolysis time does not affect real.