Production of Cellulose with the help of Bacteria from Pomegranate New Scientific Innovation

 The scientist in National Chemical Laboratory (NCL), Pune, Western India have utilized the bacteria (Komagataeibacterxylin) from rotten pomegranate to produce bacterial cellulose. These bacterias are used in manufacture paper and pulp production as this bacterial cellulose have better Tensile Strength and Moldability. Also, they lack lignin and hemicellulose, which makes them suitable for making tissue, scaffold material and wound dressing material. Substances like fructose, lactose, sorbitol, and glycerol were used by the researchers to produce cellulose but later they reported that the highest production is possible only when glycerol was used as the source of carbon.

Good quality bacterial cellulose can be produced by the bacterium and its strains. The cost of production and the yield is low that make sit unfavorable for large-scale production. The estimated costs come around a dollar to produce 9 grams of bacterial cellulose but glycerol media costs less compared to standard media.

In paper and paperboard industry, trees are used for papermaking because they contain cellulose. As the cellulose is found abundant only in the plant kingdom, this alternative source of producing cellulose from bacteria of rotten pomegranate would rather help to reduce the cut down of trees. Cellulose is a non-digestible plant fiber, and we actually need non-digestible vegetable fiber in our regular food and it had no harmful side effects