Abstract: Ethanol fermentation using biomembrane which was made by polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) and anion exchange resin as carrier of immobilized yeast was studied. The result showed that: the optimum conditions of fermentation was pH5.0, temperature 30 ℃. While batch fermentation repeated in several times, the highest ethanol concentration could achieve 5.74 g/100ml, the remaining sugar was 0.36 g/100ml. When continuous fermentation last 20 days at the flow-rate of 20 ml/h, the ethanol concentration kept at 5.50 g/100ml after the fermentation was steady.

Key words: polyvinyl alcohol, immobilized yeast, ethanol fermentation