Intensification of valorization of cooked rice water through energy-efficient synthesis of drop-in biofuel (butyl levulinate): engine performance, emission profile, and environmental impact assessments.

For the first time, an energy-efficient and eco-friendly technology for the conversion of abundantly available kitchen waste, specifically waste cooked rice water (WCRW) to drop-in- biofuels, namely, butyl levulinate (BL), has been explored. The synthesis of BL was accomplished employing butyl alcohol (BA) and WCRW in an energy-efficient UV (5W each UVA and UVB)-near-infrared (100W) irradiation assisted spinning (120 rpm) batch reactor (UVNIRSR) in the presence of TiO2-Amberlyst 15 (TA15) photo-acidic catalyst system (PACS). The optimal 95.81% yield of BL (YBL) could be achieved at 10 wt% catalyst concentration, 60 °C reaction temperature, 80 min time, and 1:10 WCRW: BA concentration as per Taguchi statistical design. Moreover, additional combination of different PACS such as TiO2-Amberlyst 16, TiO2-Amberlyst 36, and TiO2-Amberlite IRC120 H rendered 86.72% YBL, 90.04% YBL, and 93.47% YBL, respectively, proving superior efficacy compared to individual activity of the acidic catalysts and photocatalysts. The heterogeneous reaction kinetics study for TA15 PACS suggested Langmuir-Hinshelwood model to be the best fitted model. A significant 63.33% energy could be saved by UVNIRSR as compared to conventional heated reactor at the optimized experimental condition using PACS TA15. An overall alleviation in environmental pollution with 59.259% reduction in GWP, 15.254% decline in terrestrial ecotoxicity, 18.238% diminution in marine ecotoxicity, 17.25% decrease in ozone formation affecting human health, 5.865% reduction in human non-carcinogenic toxicity, 18.65% diminution in ozone formation affecting terrestrial ecosystem, 55.17% significant decrease in terrestrial acidification, and 25.619% mitigation in fresh water ecotoxicity could be observed. Furthermore, BL-biodiesel-diesel blends (3% BL, 7% biodiesel, and 90% diesel) exhibited significant reduction (25.45% and 36%, respectively, for CO and HC) in harmful engine exhaust emissions demonstrating environmental sustainability of the overall process.

Conversion of waste cooked rice into maltose by a Bacillus subtilis-derived maltogenic amylase and production of maltobionic acid from the prepared maltose using genetically modified Pseudomonas taetrolens.

In this study, we attempted to produce maltobionic acid (MBA) from waste cooked rice (WCR) using maltose as an intermediate. In our previous study, we produced maltose from WCR using a commercial maltogenic amylase (Maltogenase L). However, in the present study, we used wild-type Bacillus subtilis, which inherently produces maltogenic amylase (AmyE), instead of Maltogenase L to produce maltose from WCR. During cultivation of B. subtilis with WCR, maltose was successfully produced by AmyE in the culture medium. To improve maltose production, we constructed a recombinant B. subtilis strain expressing AmyE and used it for maltose production. Following cultivation of the recombinant B. subtilis strain, the maltose production titer (34.6 g/L) increased approximately 3.6-fold that (9.6 g/L) obtained from the cultivation of wild-type B. subtilis. Using Pseudomonas taetrolens, an efficient MBA-producing bacterium, 28.8 g/L of MBA was produced from the prepared maltose (27.6 g/L). The above results indicated that MBA was successfully produced from WCR via a two-step process, which involved the conversion of WCR into maltose by maltogenic amylase-producing B. subtilis and the production of MBA from the WCR-derived maltose by P. taetrolens.