ReviewAn overview of natural renewable bio-polymer lignin towards nano and biotechnological applications

•Lignin can be isolated from natural source.•Lignin is one of the major bio-polymer next to cellulose.•Lignin as antioxidant and antimicrobial agent.•Lignin as capping and reducing agent in nanoparticle synthesis.

Lignin were said to be major bio-polymer next to cellulose which is an abundant biopolymer. This type of lignin was mostly isolated from woods which were named after their physical, morphological appearances and majorly on extracting sources. Still now there are very few reports on isolation, identification of pure lignin and isolating pathways are also not well defined. Molecular weight of lignin varies from thousands to ten thousands which are not explored accurately. Even-though lignins were surrounded by these many hurdles it has various application studies which were studied and reported. Nowadays researchers focused on synthesizing lignin nanoparticles which were subjected for various application studies in day today life. This lignin contains wide range of applications in several fields like medicinal, industrial, pharmaceuticals, etc., Most of the researcher are focused on applications like anti-oxidant and microbicidal agents. So this review will comprises of outlook of bioprocessing lignin and its application focused on nanoparticles synthesis, anti-oxidant and microbicidal agents. This was the first review on renewable bio-polymer lignin with its bio-pharmaceutical and nanobiotechnological applications.