Abstract
Surface-active agents are amphiphilic chemicals that are used in almost every sector of modern industry, the bulk of which are produced by organo-chemical synthesis. Those produced from biological sources (biosurfactants and bioemulsifiers), however, have gained increasing interest in recent years due to their wide structural and functional diversity, lower toxicities and high biodegradability, compared to their chemically-synthesised counterparts. This review aims to present a general overview on surface-active agents, including their classification, where new types of these biomolecules may lay awaiting discovery, and some of the main bottlenecks for their industrial-scale production. In particular, the marine environment is highlighted as a largely untapped source for discovering new types of surface-active agents. Marine bacteria, especially those living associated with micro-algae (eukaryotic phytoplankton), are a highly promising source of polymeric surface-active agents with potential biotechnological applications. The high uronic acids content of these macromolecules has been linked to conferring them with amphiphilic qualities, and their high structural diversity and polyanionic nature endows them with the potential to exhibit a wide range of functional diversity. Production yields (e.g. by fermentation) for most microbial surface-active agents have often been too low to meet the volume demands of industry, and this principally remains as the most important bottleneck for their further commercial development. However, new developments in recombinant and synthetic biology approaches can offer significant promise to alleviate this bottleneck. This review highlights a particular biotope in the marine environment that offers promise for discovering novel surface-active biomolecules, and gives a general overview on specific areas that researchers and the industry could focus work towards increasing the production yields of microbial surface-active agents.
Highlights
Surface-active agents are a group of amphiphilic chemical compounds that are distinguished for their ability to mix two immiscible substances, such as oil and water [1,2,3]
Surface-active agents are amphiphilic chemicals that are used in almost every sector of modern industry, the bulk of which are produced by organo-chemical synthesis
This review aims to present a general overview on surface-active agents, including their classification, where new types of these biomolecules may lay awaiting discovery, and some of the main bottlenecks for their industrial-scale production
Summary
Surface-active agents are a group of amphiphilic chemical compounds (i.e. having both hydrophobic and hydrophilic domains) that are distinguished for their ability to mix two immiscible substances, such as oil and water [1,2,3]. Synthetically-derived products are often associated with higher toxicity, poor bio-degradability, and lower functional diversity compared to their biologically-derived counterparts [4,6] Those of biological origin (i.e. biosurfactants and bioemulsifiers) have gained increasing interest in recent years, mainly driven by changing government legislation requiring a shift toward industrial use of renewable and less toxic compounds, and an increasing consumer demand for natural and “environmentally-friendly” ingredients [11,12]. Under current climate change scenarios, even plant and animal sources used for supplying industrial materials and fine chemicals are non-sustainable since they can be seriously affected by political upheavals and meteorological events Their high-volume demand has, in some years, seen their supply to be heavily impacted, due mainly to a shortfall in their supply from low crop yields, and increasing energy and transport costs. Considering the enormous genetic diversity that microorganisms possess, they offer considerable promise in producing novel compounds for replacing some ingredients used by end-users that may not be completely sustainable
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