BIOTECHNOLOGICAL PRODUCTS AND PROCESS ENGINEERING Fruit peels support higher yield and superior quality bacterial cellulose production Jyoti Vasant Kumbhar 1 & Jyutika Milind Rajwade 1 & Kishore Madhukar Paknikar 1 Received: 24 March 2015 /Revised: 22 April 2015 /Accepted: 24 April 2015 # Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2015 Abstract Fruit peels, also known as rinds or skins, are wastes readily available in large quantities. Here, we have used pine- apple (PA) and watermelon (WM) peels as substrates in the culture media (containing 5 % sucrose and 0.7 % ammonium sulfate) for production of bacterial cellulose (BC). The bacte- rial culture used in the study, Komagataeibacter hansenii pro- duced BC under static conditions as a pellicle at the air–liquid interface in standard Hestrin and Schramm (HS) medium. The yield obtained was ~3.0 g/100 ml (on a wet weight basis). The cellulosic nature of the pellicle was confirmed by CO 2 ,H 2 O, N 2 , and SO 2 (CHNS) analysis and Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM) of the pellicle revealed the presence of flat twisted ribbonlike fibrils (70–130 nm wide). X-ray diffraction analysis proved its crystalline nature (matching cellulose I) with a crystallinity index of 67 %. When K. hansenii was grown in PA and WM media, BC yields were threefolds or fourfolds higher than those obtained in HS medium. Interestingly, textural characterization tests (viz., SEM, crystallinity index, resilience, hardness, adhesive- ness, cohesiveness, springiness, shear energy and stress, and energy required for puncturing the pellicle) proved that the quality of BC produced in PA and WM media was superior to the BC produced in HS medium. These findings demon- strate the utility of the newly designed media for getting higher yields and better quality of BC, which could make fermentative production of BC more attractive on a commer- cial scale. Keywords Komagataeibacter hansenii MCM B-967 . Bacterial cellulose . Pineapple peels . Watermelon peels . Textural properties Introduction Unlike the plant-derived cellulose, bacterial cellulose (BC) is produced as a “pure” homopolymer consisting of repeating glucose units [(C 6 H 10 O 5 ) n ] linked by β (1–4) glycosidic link- age. The extracellular carbohydrate polymer is naturally pro- duced in copious amounts by only certain bacterial genera belonging to the family Acetobacteraceae (Park et al. 2003; Chawla et al. 2009; Lee et al. 2014). The cellulose produced is advantageous to the cellulose-producing microorganism be- cause it retains moisture and maintains an aerobic environ- ment (Schramm and Hestrin 1954), offers protection against hazardous effect of ultraviolet (UV) radiation (Williams and Cannon 1989), and confers mechanical, chemical, and physi- ological protection (Ross et al. 1991). Bacterial cellulose has a distinctive nanostructure and excellent mechanical properties and moldability. These features make it a biomaterial of choice for further investigations. Apart from the food industry (Budhiono et al. 1999; Shi et al. 2014), various applications for BC have been proposed, viz., in packaging (Zhu et al. 2010; Dobre et al. 2012), paper (Surma-Ślusarska et al. 2008), aerogels (Haimer et al. 2010; Wu et al. 2013), as im- mobilization matrices (Rezaee et al. 2008; Wu et al. 2013), biosensors (Zhang et al. 2010; Hu et al. 2011), electronics (Shah and Brown 2005; Barud et al. 2013), reinforcing agents (Eichhorn et al. 2010; Blaker et al. 2010; Ashori et al. 2012), etc. The attributes of BC that make it a material suited * Jyutika Milind Rajwade jrajwade@aripune.org * Kishore Madhukar Paknikar kmpaknikar@aripune.org; kpaknikar@gmail.com 1 Centre for Nanobioscience, Agharkar Research Institute, G. G. Agarkar Road, Pune 411 004, India Appl Microbiol Biotechnol DOI 10.1007/s00253-015-6644-8