Comparison of bacterial cellulose production by various biomass wastes as culture media

Bacterial cellulose (BC) has been widely used in various fields because of its excellent physical and chemical characteristics. However, the high production cost limits its applications. This study focused on the investigation of culture media prepared from three kinds of biomass wastes including vinegar residue (VR), paper mulberry (PM), and seagrass (SG), and their potential for BC production using kombucha was evaluated. VR, PM, and SG were hydrolyzed using acetic acid and enzyme treatment to obtain reducing sugars in concentrations of 14.78 g/L, 11.73 g/L, and 12.23 g/L, respectively, under optimized thermohydrolytic and enzymatic hydrolysis conditions. All biomass wastes applied in this study supported BC production, among which BC yields from VR (5.36 g/L) and PM (4.27 g/L) media were higher than Hestrin-Schramm (HS) (1.13 g/L) medium. In comparison, the SG (0.70 g/L) medium was lower. The BC samples were evaluated using SEM, FTIR, XRD, and TG analysis. Average fiber diameters and crystallinities of BC obtained from VR (60 nm, 77.39 %) and PM (58 nm, 67.54 %) media were higher than those obtained from HS (38 nm, 66.88 %) and SG (35 nm, 62.81 %) media. Iα content of BC from the three biomass waste media ranged from 0.47 to 0.48 and was higher than from the HS (0.43) medium. The thermal stability of BC from the SG medium was higher than that of other media. The current study demonstrated that biomass wastes especially VR and PM are promising carbon sources for sustainable production of BC.