Ethanol and fructose are important materials for the fuel and food markets; high fructose syrup production processes are still
costly. The effect of inoculum medium composition on the production of fructose and ethanol from dates by selective fermentation
was investigated. The addition of minerals improved the fructose content in the produced syrup and ethanol productivity. The
addition of malt extract to the medium increased fructose yield from 94% to 97%, but decreased ethanol yield from 78% to

Abstract. About half of worldwide production of dates is unconsumed. Dates contain over 75 % reduced sugars (mostly glucose and fructose with nearly equal amount). Compared to the commercial Saccharomyces cerevisiae wild strain, the strains ATCC 36858 and 36859 could produce high concentration fructose syrups. The fructose fractions obtained were 95.9 and 97.4% for ATCC 36858 and 86.5 and 91.4% for ATCC 36859 at 30 and 33oC, respectively.

Dates contain over 75 % reduced sugars in form of glucose and fructose. Saccharomyces cerevisiae strain
ATCC 36858 has been used to selectively ferment the glucose component in the date syrup into ethanol.
Separation of ethanol from the fermentation resulted in higher fructose concentrations. The selective
fermentation was performed at three temperatures, i.e., 27, 30 and 33 °C at agitation speed of 120 rpm
and initial syrup concentration of 15 % (150 g/L). The fructose fractions in the remaining sugar solution