Question

For the production of ethanol, the most common substrate used in distilleries is?
(a) Soy meal
(b) Molasses
(c) Ground gram
(d) corn meal

Answer 1

Hint:
This substance is a viscous substance that results after refining sugarcane and sugarbeets into sugar. These are also used in sweetening and flavouring agents. It is also a major constituent of brown sugar. These are also used in baking, candy-making, and also to make rum.

Complete step by step answer:
Microbes are used to synthesize several products valuable to human beings. Beverages and antibiotics are some examples. Production on an industrial scale requires growing microbes in very large vessels called fermentors. Sugar converts into pyruvic acid and with the help of the enzyme alcohol dehydrogenase it gets converted into ethanol and carbon dioxide are released as a by-product. The major product obtained from the molasses by anaerobic fermentations with the help of microbes is ethanol. This process releases carbon dioxide as a by-product that is utilized in food preservation industries. Wine and beer are produced without distillation.
Molasses also behaves as a microbiological energy source in many fermentation processes. It is also used to grow yeasts, moulds, and bacteria which transforms sugars into alcohol, yeast, citric acid, and the food additives monosodium glutamate and lysine.
Hence the correct answer is Molasses.

Option ‘B’ is correct

Note:
Molasses is an agro-industrial by-product during the processing of sugarcane and sugarbeet into sugar, often used in alcohol distilleries due to the presence of high levels of fermentative sugars such as glucose, sucrose, and fructose.