Abstract
Biosurfactants are the surface active compounds produced by micro-organisms. The eco-friendly and biodegradable nature of biosurfactants makes their usage more advantageous over chemical surfactants. Biosurfactants encompass the properties of dropping surface tension, stabilizing emulsions, promoting foaming and are usually non- toxic and biodegradable. Biosurfactants offer advantages over their synthetic counterparts in many applications ranging from environmental, food, and biomedical, cosmetic and pharmaceutical industries. The important environmental applications of biosurfactants include bioremediation and dispersion of oil spills, enhanced oil recovery and transfer of crude oil. The emphasis of present review shall be with reference to the commercial production, current developments and future perspectives of a variety of approaches of biosurfactant production from the micro-organisms isolated from various oil- contaminated sites and from the by-products of oleo-chemical industry wastes/ by-products viz. used edible oil, industrial residues, acid oil, deodorizer distillate, soap-stock etc.
Highlights
Biosurfactants are the surface active agents that are amphipathic in nature and possess both hydrophilic and hydrophobic moieties that reduce the surface and interfacial tensions between two immiscible liquids
These all properties show their potential of usage at industrial level for a greener environment. This present review provides the basic scientific information on the production and applications of biosurfactants from the oleo-chemical industrial wastes that is required to exploit natural processes and develop methods to hasten these processes for economically viable production of biosurfactants by the usage of oil industry wastes
Regardless of the advantages of biosurfactant synthesis, its industrial use is still limited due to the high costs involved in the production process
Summary
Biosurfactants are the surface active agents that are amphipathic in nature and possess both hydrophilic and hydrophobic moieties that reduce the surface and interfacial tensions between two immiscible liquids. Biosurfactants are widely used in hydrocarbon bioremediation field due to their enhanced oil recovery (EOR) Their presence lowers the surface and interfacial tension of the oil reservoirs which facilitate the oil flow and enhance the oil recovery (Kosaric 1992). Many microorganisms have been isolated from contaminated soils, effluents and waste water sources for industrial utilization of the various types of agro-industrial waste products These have an ability to grow on substrates considered potentially noxious for other non-producing microorganisms. Olive oil was the best carbon source for the production of biosurfactants by Pseudomonas fluorescence compared to the hexadecane and glucose which reduced the surface tension of the fermentation media to 38 dyne/cm and an emulsification activity of 49%. Hexadecane was able to reduce the surface tension of the fermentation media but with only 10% emulsification activity while on glucose the strain grew without biosurfactant production (Abouseoud et al 2007)
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