An overview of fungal biopolymers: bioemulsifiers and biosurfactants compounds production

Abstract

Fungal biopolymers have gained considerable attention from the scientific community for various applications due to their biological and physicochemical properties. The wide applications in several areas, especially in the food industry as a bioemulsifier and in the agricultural area as a biosurfactant, have expanded the knowledge on the production of fungal biopolymers to keep up with developments on this subject area. Recent scientific studies have disclosed novel routes, optimized parameters, increased yields, and other related approaches in order to produce and apply fungal bioemulsifiers and biosurfactants. However, there is a need to gather important information in order to provide a way forward. Therefore, this review presents an overview of properties, applications, and perspectives for encouraging further projects and investments in the near future by most categories of investors. The selection of culture media, the definition of cultivation parameters, extraction, recovery, and purification are the initial steps to indicate the conditions for scale-up. Indeed, scale-up is still one of the challenges in this biotechnological field, which could be solved by expanding the tests and operational productions in both pilot and industrial plants.

Keywords:

• Fungal biopolymers
• exopolysaccharides
• intrapolysaccharides
• bioemulsifiers
• biosurfactants
• submerged fermentation
• microbial biotechnology
• industrial applications

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s)

Additional information

Funding

The authors thank Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES) for the scholarships, and Research Support Foundation of the State of Rio Grande do Sul (FAPERGS) and National Council of Technological and Scientific Development (CNPq) for the financial support.