Bacterial Biosurfactants: Isolation, Purification, Characterization, and Industrial Applications

This new volume offers comprehensive coverage of bacterial biosurfactants, the competitive new area of research that has exciting potential application in agriculture and petroleum exploration. The book helps readers to understand the synthesis of biosurfactants by some specific bacteria, their culture, and extraction toward the use in bioremediation and enhanced crude oil recovery.

The volume covers to the gamut of topics in bacterial biosurfactants in nanostructure, including their comparison to synthetic surfactants, their interaction with microorganisms, their biochemistry, characterization, genetics of production, bioremedial effects, and more. The volume also explores the myriad uses of bacterial biosurfactants in many sectors, including laundry detergents, cosmetics, food, petroleum, agriculture, medical and therapeutics, environment, metallurgy, etc.

Attention to biosurfactants has been gradually increasing in recent years due to the possibility of their production through fermentation technology and their potential applications in environmental protection. In spite of the numerous advantages over the synthetic chemical surfactants, biosurfactants have been unable to compete with chemically synthesized surfactants due to their high production costs in relation to the inefficient bioprocessing techniques, poor strain productivity, and use of costly substrates. The success of biosurfactant production depends on the development of cheaper processes and the use of low-cost raw materials. This volume helps to identify the factors that need to be addressed to reduce the cost of production of biosurfactants, such as microorganisms, processes, growth substrate for process feed stocks, and the process byproducts.

With this volume, Bacterial Biosurfactants: Isolation, Purification, Characterization, and Industrial Applications, scholars will be encouraged to take up meaningful research in the area; teachers will find the book to be helpful in elucidating the intricacies of bacterial biosurfactant production and use; and researchers will find the procedures described in the book helpful in deriving potential results.