Abstract:
Recent advances in the field of biomaterials and their applications indicate the significance and the potential of various polysaccharides in the development of novel classes of industrial and medical materials. Among them, bacterial cellulose (BC), a polymer synthesized in abundance by Acetobacterxylinum shows vast potential in the Sri Lankan context. BC could be synthesized using coconut water as the main substrate media in a static or in a dynamic system. BC possesses unique physical properties that distinguish it from plant cellulose such as extreme hydrophillicity, high elasticity, conformability and unique nano fine network structure. In this study, BC was synthesized using both static and dynamic systems. It was shown that latter method could overcome scale up limitations to a considerable extent due to process measurement and control abilities. Properties of wet and dried BC synthesized using static fermentation revealed that specimens consist of a nano fibre network structure and have water vapour transmission rate (WVTR), fluid re-absorption capacity (FRAC) and Young’s modulus values that are significantly different. The application potential of BC showed that it could be used as a proton exchange membrane in a microbial fuel cell, as a heavy metal adsorbent and as a wound dressing material. Thus, BC may prove to be a versatile biomaterial with immense economical and environmental benefits to Sri Lanka.