Published Paper Details:

A potato processing industry use large quantity of water and therefore produces large liquid waste. Wastewater from the potato processing industry contain high concentration of chemical oxygen demand (COD) caused by the presence of starch and protein. In recent year membrane processes shows an effective alternative to traditional wastewater treatment processes for improving the efficiency and reducing the environmental impact in the food industry. Potatoes are cheap substrate for production of bioethanol, because it is rich in starch and require less processing than other grains. In this study, potato processing wastewater was treated by using reverse osmosis system. Experiments were carried out in order to compare each run of the reverse osmosis by varying operating conditions. It was found that optimum feed pressure for the treatment of potato processing wastewater was 10 kg/cm2 using polyethersulphone reverse osmosis membrane. The rejection of 95.25% dissolved solid, 96.42% chemical oxygen demand(COD) and recovery of 0.72% starch were observed at 10 Kg/cm2 feed pressure and transmembrane pressure of 8.5 Kg/cm2. Different potato starch solution(5%, 10%, 15% and 20%) were prepared for optimum production of bioethanol. Starch solution of 10% was recommended for high scale production of ethanol. Moreover, 4.7% of bioethanol was produced from 10% starch solution using Saccharomyces cerevisiae (baker's yeast).