The Effects Of Sugar Substitutes On Ethanol Production In Yeast

Abstract

Baker’s yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) has many commercial uses such as the following: baking, alcohol production, and biofuels. (French 2016) Maximizing the growth of S. cerevisae would help to increase the production of these goods. Factors that help the varying growth rates of yeast is temperature, sugar concentration, and nitrogen levels. (French 2016) What about different types of sweeteners? We are testing how sugar substitutes affect the growth rate of S. cerevisiae in order to see if production could be increased by using alternatives to natural sugar. For our studies, we will be specifically testing the effects of glucose, Sweet N’ Low, and Stevia. We hypothesize that if S. cerevisae is fed sugar substitutes, then ethanol production will decrease when compared to S. cerevisae that is being fed glucose.