Page 321 - Advances in Textile Biotechnology

302 Advances in textile biotechnology

from Paenibacillus sp. So-called fermentation-processed chitin (FPC) was
compared for chitinase adsorption capacity to other chitin adsorbents
obtained using chemical and enzymatic processes and results showed supe-
rior behaviour of FPC for enzyme adsorption and subsequent enzyme
activity of immobilized chitinase. This new method for chitin processing has
the advantages of low energy consumption and waste emission over tradi-
tional chemical/physical methods and shows potential for scale-up from a
5 L stirred tank-bioreactor to industrial-scale production.

12.4.2 Bacterial cellulose

Owing to its purity, remarkable mechanical properties in both the dry and
the wet state, porosity, water absorbency, mouldability, biodegradability and

excellent biological affinity, a wide range of applications of bacterial cel-
lulose can be envisaged in the food, medical, paper and textile fi elds. A new

type of artificial leather with a soft touch was produced from bacterial cel-
lulose. Bacterial cellulose has also been investigated for paper production
and companies like Ajinomoto Co. along with Mitsubishi Paper Mills in
Japan are currently active in this area. Shah and Brown (2005) described
some interesting uses of this type of ‘electronic paper’ such as e-book
tablets, e-newspapers, dynamic wallpapers, rewritable maps and learning
tools. Because of its outstanding sound reproducibility, Sony Corporation
has now commercialized high-quality headphones using bacterial cellulose
sheets. Other interesting uses of bacterial cellulose, most of them described
as possible applications in the patent WO 8912107 (Brown, 1989) include:
water treatment, carrier for battery fluids and fuel cells, mixing agent, vis-

cosity modifier, light-transmitting optical fibres, biological substrate medium,

food or food substitute and lint-free specialty clothing. Despite of all these

interesting uses, to date, the biomedical field has been the main area of
application of bacterial cellulose (Czaja et al., 2007). This includes health-
care textiles (Wan and Millon, 2005), artificial skin (Czaja et al., 2007),

catheter covering dressing (Wan and Millon, 2005), dialysis membrane
(Wan and Millon, 2005), membranes for tissue-guided regeneration (Czaja
et al., 2007; Wan and Millon, 2005), controlled-drug release carriers (Wan
and Millon, 2005), scaffolds for tissue engineering (Czaja et al., 2007), and
artificial blood vessels (Backdahl et al., 2006). Various commercial prepara-

tions of bacterial cellulose such as Biofill®, Bioprocess®, Gengifl ex® and

BASYC® have been successfully applied for some of the medical applica-
tions described above. A family of wound care products based on bacterial
cellulose named XCell® (www.xyloscorp.com) has been marketed in the
US since 2003. Owing to its unique nano- and microfibrils 3D network

bacterial cellulose served as a template or matrix for the synthesis of
nanoparticles and nanowires (Li et al., 2009). For bacterial cellulose to be

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