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      Biosurfactant-enhanced hydrocarbon bioremediation: An overview

      , ,
      International Biodeterioration & Biodegradation
      Elsevier BV

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          Microbial biosurfactants production, applications and future potential.

          Microorganisms synthesise a wide range of surface-active compounds (SAC), generally called biosurfactants. These compounds are mainly classified according to their molecular weight, physico-chemical properties and mode of action. The low-molecular-weight SACs or biosurfactants reduce the surface tension at the air/water interfaces and the interfacial tension at oil/water interfaces, whereas the high-molecular-weight SACs, also called bioemulsifiers, are more effective in stabilising oil-in-water emulsions. Biosurfactants are attracting much interest due to their potential advantages over their synthetic counterparts in many fields spanning environmental, food, biomedical, and other industrial applications. Their large-scale application and production, however, are currently limited by the high cost of production and by limited understanding of their interactions with cells and with the abiotic environment. In this paper, we review the current knowledge and the latest advances in biosurfactant applications and the biotechnological strategies being developed for improving production processes and future potential.
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            Towards commercial production of microbial surfactants.

            Biosurfactants or microbial surfactants are surface-active biomolecules that are produced by a variety of microorganisms. Biosurfactants have gained importance in the fields of enhanced oil recovery, environmental bioremediation, food processing and pharmaceuticals owing to their unique properties--higher biodegradability, lower toxicity, and effectiveness at extremes of temperature, pH and salinity. However, large-scale production of these molecules has not been realized because of low yields in production processes and high recovery and purification costs. This article describes some practical approaches that have been adopted to make the biosurfactant production process economically attractive: these include the use of cheaper raw materials, optimized and efficient bioprocesses and overproducing mutant and recombinant strains for obtaining maximum productivity. The application of these strategies in biosurfactant production processes, particularly those using hyper-producing recombinant strains in the optimally controlled environment of a bioreactor, might lead towards the successful commercial production of these valuable and versatile biomolecules in near future.
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              Evaluation of biosurfactants for crude oil contaminated soil washing.

              An evaluation of the ability of aqueous biosurfactant solutions (aescin, lecithin, rhamnolipid, saponin and tannin) for possible applications in washing crude oil contaminated soil was carried out. The biosurfactants behaviour in soil-water, water-oil and oil-soil systems (such as foaming, solubilization, sorption to soil, emulsification, surface and interfacial tension) was measured and compared with a well-known chemical surfactant (sodium dodecyl sulphate, SDS) at varying concentrations. Results showed that the biosurfactants were able to remove significant amount of crude oil from the contaminated soil at different solution concentrations for instance rhamnolipid and SDS removed up to 80% oil and lecithin about 42%. The performance of water alone in crude oil removal was equally as good as those of the other biosurfactants. Oil removal was due to mobilization, caused by the reduction of surface and interfacial tensions. Solubilization and emulsification effects in oil removal were negligible due to the low crude oil solubilization of 0.11%. Therefore, these studies suggest that knowledge of surfactants' behaviour across different systems is paramount before their use in the practical application of oil removal.
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                Author and article information

                Journal
                International Biodeterioration & Biodegradation
                International Biodeterioration & Biodegradation
                Elsevier BV
                09648305
                April 2014
                April 2014
                : 89
                :
                : 88-94
                Article
                10.1016/j.ibiod.2014.01.007
                b8737b39-fdc5-4aa1-b576-ee549028e040
                © 2014
                History

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