Sustainable bacterial cellulose production by low cost feedstock: evaluation of apple and tea by-products as alternative sources of nutrients

Abstract

The high applicability of Bacterial Cellulose (BC) is often challenging due to its high production costs, which ultimately prevents its widespread use. Therefore, the present study aimed to investigate BC production using alternative feedstock to replace high-cost synthetic carbon and nitrogen sources and to evaluate the physical and structural properties of the produced BC membranes. BC was produced through a microbial consortium from kombucha, and the formulated alternative media sustained promising BC production, especially the association of apple wastes (at 10% (W/V)) with tea mixture, with a yield similar to BC produced on Hestrin–Schramm (HS) control media. Moreover, the BC samples produced in this alternative media also exhibited comparable properties to BC from HS media, with similar water-holding capacity and retention ability, thermal stability, mechanical behavior, and a crystallinity index of 87.61% and 88.08%, respectively. Thus, our findings substantiated that expensive substrates, such as glucose, peptone, and yeast extract, could be successfully replaced by apple wastes, black and green tea, for BC production while maintaining its remarkable physical and structural properties. Furthermore, besides the low-cost advantage, the bioconversion of apple waste also reduces the environmental burden caused by its disposal in landfills.