ORIGINAL PAPER Bacterial Cellulose from Simple and Low Cost Production Media by Gluconacetobacter xylinus Analı ´a Vazquez • Marı ´a Laura Foresti • Patricia Cerrutti • Miguel Galvagno Published online: 7 November 2012 Ó Springer Science+Business Media New York 2012 Abstract Bacterial cellulose pellicles were produced by Gluconacetobacter xylinus using non conventional low-cost carbon sources, such as glycerol remaining from biodiesel production and grape bagasse, a residue of wine production. The carbon sources assayed showed their suitability for microbial cellulose production, with relatively high pro- duction values such as 10.0 g/l for the culture medium with glycerol from biodiesel as carbon source and corn steep liquor as nitrogen source; and 8.0 g/l for the culture medium containing grape bagasse and corn steep liquor. Glucose, commercial glycerol and cane molasses were also assayed as carbon sources for comparison. The bacterial celluloses produced were characterized by means of scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and thermogravimetric analysis. Morpholog- ical analysis showed that bacterial cellulose microfibrils produced from the non-conventional media used were sev- eral micrometers long and had rectangular cross-sections with widths and thicknesses in the range of 35–70 and 13–24 nm, respectively. X-ray patterns showed crystallinity levels in the range of 74–79 % (area method), whereas both X-ray patterns and infrared spectroscopy evidenced the presence of peaks characteristic of Cellulose I polymorph. Besides thermal properties were similar to those found for the pellicle obtained from glucose. The study performed showed the suitability of using wine residues or glycerol remaining from increasing biodiesel production as cheap carbon sources for production of bacterial cellulose micro- fibrils, with similar characteristics as those obtained by use of more expensive carbon sources such as glucose or com- mercial glycerol. On the other hand, the low cost nitrogen sources used (corn steep liquor or diammonium phosphate) also contributed to the economy of the bioprocess. Keywords Bacterial cellulose  Low cost carbon sources  Grape bagasse  Glycerol from biodiesel Introduction Cellulose is a linear polysaccharide consisting of a chain of b(1 ? 4) linked D-glucose units. Although generally obtained from wood and natural fibers, it is now well established that cellulose is also produced by a family of sea animals called tunicates, several species of algae, and by some species of bacteria. In the last decade, nanosized constituents of cellulose have triggered a revived interest on the well-known natural polymer. During biosynthesis of cellulose chains, van der Waals forces and hydrogen bonding between hydroxyl groups and oxygens of adjacent molecules promote parallel stacking of multiple cellulose chains forming elementary fibrils that further aggregate into larger microfibrils [1], with diameters within 2–20 nm and several microns length. In the last decade much research has been devoted to the extraction of cellulose microfibrils and nanocrystals from A. Vazquez (&)  M. L. Foresti Polymer and Composite Material Group, Laboratorio de Materiales y Estructuras, Facultad de Ingenierı ´a, Instituto de Tecnologı ´as y Ciencias de la Ingenierı ´a (INTECIN) CONICET, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Las Heras 2214, CP 1127 Buenos Aires, Argentina e-mail: avazquez@fi.uba.ar P. Cerrutti  M. Galvagno Departamento de Ingenierı ´a Quı ´mica, Facultad de Ingenierı ´a, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina M. Galvagno Instituto de Investigaciones Biotecnolo ´gicas CONICET, UNSAM, Buenos Aires, Argentina 123 J Polym Environ (2013) 21:545–554 DOI 10.1007/s10924-012-0541-3