The statistical optimization of bacterial cellulose production via semi-continuous operation mode

• Bacterial cellulose (BC) production in static culture was optimized by statistical optimization.
• In semi-continuous operation, optimum value of volume changing ratio was estimated as 66%.
• BC generation was not effected by high glucose concentration when the operation was in high volume changing ratios.
• Semi-continuous operation mode is an alternative process for bacterial cellulose production.

Bacterial cellulose (BC) is highly pure and has a higher crystallinity and molecular weight than plant cellulose. Therefore, BC can be used in many different areas such as biotechnology, pharmaceutical, cosmetics. Because of the price of BC, the productivity of BC is an important parameter for industrial scale applications. In this study, BC was produced in static culture using a semi-continuous operation mode; the conditions were optimized using response surface methodology (RSM). The collected BC was characterized by Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and tensile strength. Optimization parameters were selected as glucose concentration, surface area/volume ratio, surface area and incubation day intervals. The optimum values for incubation day intervals, volume changing ratios, glucose concentrations and surface area/volume ratios were 7 days, 66%, 50 g/L and 1.22 cm−1, respectively. BC productivity reached 0.284 g/L/day under optimal conditions, while the model equation proposed 0.289 g/L/day. RSM is essential for determining the optimum values of parameters for BC production compared with the one-variable-at-a-time method. The semi-continuous operation mode is alternative and a good candidate for the industrial scale production of BC.

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