Microbial surfactants: characteristics, production and broader application prospects in environment and industry

Abstract

Microbial surfactants are green molecules with high surface activities having the most promising advantages over chemical surfactants including their ability to efficiently reducing surface and interfacial tension, nontoxic emulsion-based formulations, biocompatibility, biodegradability, simplicity of preparation from low cost materials such as residual by-products and renewable resources at large scales, effectiveness and stabilization under extreme conditions and broad spectrum antagonism of pathogens to be part of the biocontrol strategy. Thus, biosurfactants are universal tools of great current interest. The present work describes the major types and microbial origin of surfactants and their production optimization from agro-industrial wastes in the batch shake-flasks and bioreactor systems through solid-state and submerged fermentation industries. Various downstream strategies that had been developed to extract and purify biosurfactants are discussed. Further, the physicochemical properties and functional characteristics of biosurfactants open new future prospects for the development of efficient and eco-friendly commercially successful biotechnological product compounds with diverse potential applications in environment, industry, biomedicine, nanotechnology and energy-saving technology as well.

Highlights

• Biosurfactants are important biotechnological products with unique superior potentials over their synthetic counterparts.

• Physiological roles of biosurfactants in survival of the producing microorganisms under unfavorable conditions.

• Classification of biosurfactants.

• Biosurfactant types produced by yeasts, fungi and bacteria.

• Production efficiency optimization of biosurfactants.

• Utilization of agro-industrial wastes as economic renewable substrates for biosurfactants production.

• Production of biosurfactants by solid-state and submerged fermentation industries.

• Potential applications of biosurfactants in environment.

• Glycolipid biosurfactants efficiently control pathogens causing their membrane disruption.

• Potential application of biosurfactants in the oil industry.

• Natural surfactants are novel capping and stabilizing agents for nanoparticles synthesis.

Keywords:

• Microbial surfactants
• productivity optimization
• agro-industrial wastes
• SSF and SmF processes
• environmental and industrial applications

Author contributions

Authors listed Ahmed Mohy Eldin and Nermeen Hossam, considered experts on the topic of biosurfactant field, substantially contributed to the conception, information search and design of the literature article, tables, figures, and revised its important intellectual content. All authors read and approved the submitted final version of the manuscript.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Data availability statement

The authors confirm that all raw data supporting the findings of this study are available within the article.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.