Assessment of bioethanol yield by S. cerevisiae grown on oil palm residues: Monte Carlo simulation and sensitivity analysis

• Bioethanol yield changes due to heterogeneity of substrates, OPT sap and POME.
• Monte Carlo simulation was applied for uncertainty analysis.
• Consistent results were obtained although model parameters fluctuating around 5%.
• Sensitivity analysis was applied for identification of critical parameters.
• Bioethanol fermentation performance highly depends on the growth of yeast.

Oil palm trunk (OPT) sap was utilized for growth and bioethanol production by Saccharomycescerevisiae with addition of palm oil mill effluent (POME) as nutrients supplier. Maximum yield (YP/S) was attained at 0.464 g bioethanol/g glucose presence in the OPT sap–POME-based media. However, OPT sap and POME are heterogeneous in properties and fermentation performance might change if it is repeated. Contribution of parametric uncertainty analysis on bioethanol fermentation performance was then assessed using Monte Carlo simulation (stochastic variable) to determine probability distributions due to fluctuation and variation of kinetic model parameters. Results showed that based on 100,000 samples tested, the yield (YP/S) ranged 0.423–0.501 g/g. Sensitivity analysis was also done to evaluate the impact of each kinetic parameter on the fermentation performance. It is found that bioethanol fermentation highly depend on growth of the tested yeast.