Ethanol Production of Saccharomyces cerevisiae with Maltose, Glucose, and Sucrose

Abstract

ACME Brewing and Baking (AB&B) is constantly researching better ways to maximize ethanol and CO2 output (French 2019). This is very important since it is the most important microorganism used by humans, and baker’s yeast can be found in multiple products (French 2019). We wanted to find which sugar out of glucose, maltose, and sucrose would have a higher ethanol output. We hypothesized that maltose will produce a higher ethanol output than sucrose when compared to our control: glucose. Each sugar was stirred with a phosphate mix on a magnetic stir plate. Next, we added 2mL of a 10% yeast stock to the solution and stirred it on the magnetic plate for ten minutes while Ethanol Production (ppm) was measured by a Vernier Ethanol Sensor. This procedure was repeated four times with each sugar. We did not find a significant difference in ethanol output among glucose (n=4), sucrose (n=4) and maltose (n=4) (ANOVA, F2, 9 = 0.591, p = 0.574). Our results did not support our hypothesis. Although there is no statistically significant difference, the graph shows that Glucose had a higher Ethanol Output (ppm) than the other two sugars used (Figure 2).