Fenibo, E.O.; Ijoma, G.N.; Selvarajan, R.; Chikere, C.B. Microbial Surfactants: The Next Generation Multifunctional Biomolecules for Applications in the Petroleum Industry and Its Associated Environmental Remediation. Microorganisms2019, 7, 581.
Fenibo, E.O.; Ijoma, G.N.; Selvarajan, R.; Chikere, C.B. Microbial Surfactants: The Next Generation Multifunctional Biomolecules for Applications in the Petroleum Industry and Its Associated Environmental Remediation. Microorganisms 2019, 7, 581.
Fenibo, E.O.; Ijoma, G.N.; Selvarajan, R.; Chikere, C.B. Microbial Surfactants: The Next Generation Multifunctional Biomolecules for Applications in the Petroleum Industry and Its Associated Environmental Remediation. Microorganisms2019, 7, 581.
Fenibo, E.O.; Ijoma, G.N.; Selvarajan, R.; Chikere, C.B. Microbial Surfactants: The Next Generation Multifunctional Biomolecules for Applications in the Petroleum Industry and Its Associated Environmental Remediation. Microorganisms 2019, 7, 581.
Abstract
ABSTRACT Surfactants are a broad category of tensio-active biomolecules with multifunctional properties applications in diverse industrial sectors and processes. Surfactants are produced synthetically and biologically. The biologically derived surfactants (biosurfactants) are produced from microorganisms with Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Bacillus subtilis Candida albicans and Acinetobacter calcoaceticus as dominant species. Rhamnolipids, sophorolipids, mannosylerithritol lipids, surfactin, and emulsan are well known in terms of their biotechnological applications. Biosurfactants can compete with the synthetic surfactants in terms of performance with established advantages over the synthetic ones including eco-friendliness, biodegradability, low toxicity, and stability over a wide variability of environmental factors. However, at present, the synthetic surfactants are a preferred option in different industrial applications, because of their availability in commercial quantities, unlike the biosurfactants. Usage of synthetic surfactants introduce new species of recalcitrant pollutants to the environment and lead to undesired results where a wrong selection of surfactants is made. Substituting synthetic surfactants with biosurfactants resolves these drawbacks, thus, interest has been intensified in biosurfactant applications in a wide range of industries hitherto considered as experimental fields. This review, therefore, intends to offer an overview of diverse applications where biosurfactants have found useful, with emphases in petroleum biotechnology, environmental remediation and in the agriculture sector. Application of biosurfactant in these settings would lead to industrial growth and environmental sustainability.
Biology and Life Sciences, Biology and Biotechnology
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
