Abstract
There is a strong public concern about plastic waste, which promotes the development of new biobased materials. The benefit of using microbial biomass for new developments is that it is a completely renewable source of polymers, which is not limited to climate conditions or may cause deforestation, as biopolymers come from vegetal biomass. The present review is focused on the use of microbial biomass and its derivatives as sources of biopolymers to form new materials. Yeast and fungal biomass are low-cost and abundant sources of biopolymers with high promising properties for the development of biodegradable materials, while milk and water kefir grains, composed by kefiran and dextran, respectively, produce films with very good optical and mechanical properties. The reasons for considering microbial cellulose as an attractive biobased material are the conformational structure and enhanced properties compared to plant cellulose. Kombucha tea, a probiotic fermented sparkling beverage, produces a floating membrane that has been identified as bacterial cellulose as a side stream during this fermentation. The results shown in this review demonstrated the good performance of microbial biomass to form new materials, with enhanced functional properties for different applications.
Highlights
Due to the strong public concern about plastic waste, the development of biobased polymers is gaining more and more importance in research and industry
“synthetic polymers”, we found poly(lactic acid) (PLA), poly(butylenes succinate) (PBS), bio-polyolefins, and bio-poly(ethylene terephtalic acid)
Between the cell wall and the phospholipid membrane (Figure 2) there is a space known as periplasmic space, with the presence of enzymes that are useful to the microorganism
Summary
Due to the strong public concern about plastic waste, the development of biobased polymers is gaining more and more importance in research and industry. Materials 2020, 13, 1263 polymer production, and these polymers are called “biobased polymers” [1] This term refers to sustainable polymers (or materials) synthesized from renewable resources such as biomass instead of using fossil resources such as petroleum oil and natural gas, preferably based on biological and biochemical processes. Biopolymers are directly used as obtained from their sources and are biodegradable; they are referred to as natural polymers Their industrial use depends on the source of the materials: plants, microorganisms, and marine algae. The benefit of using microbial biopolymers for industrial production is that it is not limited by crop failure, climate conditions, or marine pollution Some of these biopolymers could be more expensive than the plant-based polymers; research on new methods and the use of low-cost culture media, such as alternative carbon and nitrogen sources, may reduce the production of more expensive EPS [7]. Throughout this review, the authors show the promising characteristics of these types of biomass for the development of sustainable materials for different applications with the aim of exploiting new sources of biobased materials
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