Enhancing bacterial cellulose production via adding mesoporous halloysite nanotubes in the culture medium

Dong Tian; Fei Shen; Jinguang Hu; Scott Renneckar; Jack N Saddler

doi:10.1016/j.carbpol.2018.06.026

Enhancing bacterial cellulose production via adding mesoporous halloysite nanotubes in the culture medium

Carbohydr Polym. 2018 Oct 15:198:191-196. doi: 10.1016/j.carbpol.2018.06.026. Epub 2018 Jun 15.

Authors

Dong Tian¹, Fei Shen², Jinguang Hu³, Scott Renneckar⁴, Jack N Saddler⁵

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Ecological and Environmental Sciences, Sichuan Agricultural University, Chengdu, Sichuan 611130, PR China; Forest Products Biotechnology/Bioenergy Group, Department of Wood Science, Faculty of Forestry, University of British Columbia, 2424 Main Mall, Vancouver, British Columbia V6T 1Z4, Canada. Electronic address: dongtian@sicau.edu.cn.
² Institute of Ecological and Environmental Sciences, Sichuan Agricultural University, Chengdu, Sichuan 611130, PR China.
³ Forest Products Biotechnology/Bioenergy Group, Department of Wood Science, Faculty of Forestry, University of British Columbia, 2424 Main Mall, Vancouver, British Columbia V6T 1Z4, Canada. Electronic address: jinguang@mail.ubc.ca.
⁴ Advanced Renewable Materials Lab., Department of Wood Science, Faculty of Forestry, University of British Columbia, 2424 Main Mall, Vancouver, British Columbia V6T 1Z4, Canada.
⁵ Forest Products Biotechnology/Bioenergy Group, Department of Wood Science, Faculty of Forestry, University of British Columbia, 2424 Main Mall, Vancouver, British Columbia V6T 1Z4, Canada.

PMID: 30092990
DOI: 10.1016/j.carbpol.2018.06.026

Abstract

Although bacterial cellulose (BC) is a fascinating, highly pure cellulose material for various downstream applications, production has been challenged by its low productivity. This work reported a facile route to significantly enhance BC yield without compromising its structural advantages via adding mesoporous halloysite nanotubes (HNTs) in the culture medium at static cultivations. The BC productivity of Gluconacetobacter xylinus was increased from 2.2 to 5.9 g L^-1 after 15 days of cultivation when 2 wt% of HNTs was added into the standard fructose medium. It appeared that the dual functionality of cell immobilization and oxygen release of the HNTs were responsible for enhancing the BC productivity. Moreover, the HNTs-resulted BC pellicle exhibited negligible content of HNTs contamination (∼2 wt%), higher degree of crystallinity (87.7%) and porosity (assessed by water holding capacity, 12.7 g g^-1), and showed promising applications especially in the bio-adsorption field.

Keywords: Bacterial cellulose; Fermentation; Halloysite; Productivity.