Bioethanol production from apple pomace using co-cultures with saccharomyces cerevisiae in solid-state fermentation

site of apple pomace at HPMC, Parwanoo, H.P. on medium enriched with apple pomace. These isolates were assigned codes APW 1-15
and were screened for their potential to produce cellulase, xylanase and ethanol. The selected isolates were used as co-culture with S.
cerevisiae for bioethanol production. All the isolates exhibited cellulase and xylanase activities ranging from 228.2 to 502.5 U/mL/min
and 185.3 to 1010.7 U/mL/min respectively, but only three isolates (APW-02, APW-04 and APW-12) produced ethanol. Isolate APW13 exhibited highest cellulase activity (502.5 U/mL/min), APW-04 showed highest xylanase activity (1010.7 U/mL/min) and APW-12
produced highest amount of ethanol (36 g/L). Two isolates (APW-12 and APW-13) were selected to co-culture with S. cerevisiae in
solid-state fermentation of apple pomace for ethanol production. S. cerevisiae and isolate APW-12 co-culture fermentation resulted in
higher ethanol production (49.64 g/L) than S. cerevisiae and APW-13 co-culture fermentation (41.7 g/L) while, S. cerevisiae alone
produced 37.6 g/L ethanol. Isolate APW-12 and APW-13 belonged to genera Actinomyces and Bacillus respectively.