Bacterial nanocellulose (BNC) is produced by bacteria strains like K. xylinus and its pristine form presents a randomly nanofiber disposition. BNC is obtained as highly pure cellulose and its properties such as high water holding capacity and porosity, tunable morphology, mechanical strength, and biocompatibility make it a unique material. As a result, BNC has attracted interest in the paper and food industry, biotechnology, photonics, and optoelectronics. Inspired by ordered structures found in nature, as the Reed leaf, and the potential properties appearing upon aligning polymers fibers (piezoelectricity, conductivity, optics and mechanics features or better cell adhesion to name a few); we have aligned BNC fibers controlling the bacterial synthesis. We report a novel, cheap, and easy biofabrication method to obtain aligned BNC with high control and in a reproducible manner. We locally confine the cellulose-producing bacteria on the bottom of a static liquid culture media tube during incubation. Due to the oxygen requirements of the bacteria and the water insolubility of BNC, bacteria synthesize cellulose nanofibers in a single direction, towards the liquid-air interface. We will show the biosynthesis production of aligned BNC fibers benefiting from the natural biosynthesis and avoiding physical-mechanical stretching. We will also present the main characteristics arising from this alignment.

Biosynthesis of aligned bacterial nanocellulose: A bioinspired material

ACS Spring Meeting 2021

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