Avaliação de materiais oriundos da agroindústria como meio de cultivo visando à obtenção de celulose bacteriana

Abstract

Bacterial cellulose is a biopolymer similar to vegetable cellulose, however it doesn't contain lignin and hemicellulose which are some of the polysaccharides of cell wall. This characteristicis desirable for industrial applications, which has awakening the interest of research in this area. This biopolymer can be produced from the cultivation of the bacterium Glucanobacter xylinus, which is present in symbiotic cultures of fermented teas, such as kombucha. However, the means of cultivation for their production are generally expensive, stimulating the research for alternative means to conventional ones. In this sense, cultivation media are based on agro-industrial residues and/or co-products, such as chicken feather and sugarcane molasses could be used. The present work aimed to produce cellulosic biofilm in media composed with chicken feathers and diluted sugar cane molasses hydrolyzates and compared these media with the conventional culture medium (Medium Hestrin Schramm (HS)) during symbiotic culture of kombucha. It was also aimed, after the establishment of the best conditions for the production of bacterial cellulose, to characterize the biofilm produced by thickness assessments; moisture content; swelling and solubility in water. The best results for the alternative media were obtained using sugarcane molasses, with static cultivation for 21 days. For this condition, getting thickness (0.67 ± 0.29 mm), moisture content (96.86 ± 0.56%), swelling (2.31x10-3 ± 1.49x10-3%) and solubility in water (98,95 ± 0.16%). Based on these results, the potential for bacterial cellulose production can be seen using a co-product as a culture medium.