Unlike wood based cellulose, bacterial synthesised cellulose has higher purity, crystallinity and is free of other contaminating polysaccharides. Its isolation and purification are relatively straight forward, requiring minimum energy or chemical inputs. Bacterial cellulose production is also one, higher value strategy to better utilise the unused carbon streams in potential biorefinery processes. <i>Glucoacetobacter xylinus</i> is a bacteria which naturally produces high yeilds of cellulose, secreting it in the form of microfibrils which merge together to form large ribbons in the growth medium. When we evaluated various bio-waste streams such as residues from fruit juice (orange pulp/orange peel, apple peel), wine (grape skin) and beer production (brewers spent grains) as a potential media sources, the hydrolized orange pulp and orange peel gave the highest bacterial cellulose yields. Optimisation strategies, such as high inoculation rates/high cell densities and increasing  the surface area of the cultivation, further improved bacterial cellulose yields. Although doubling the initial cell inoculation rates resulted in only marginal improvements in the final cellulose yield, it increased the water retention/adsorption capacity and tensile strenght of the synthesised cellulose. The influence of the varous feedstocks on cellulose structure will also be reported.<br/>

Can we make higher value, purer cellulose by synthesis rather than deconstruction?

251st National Meeting (2016)

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