Dados do Trabalho

Título

A LOW-COST AND ECOFRIENDLY BIOCELULOSE FILMS USING CHEESE STRETCHING WATER: INNOVATIVE APPROACH FOR SUSTAINABLE PACKAGING

Introdução

Bacterial nanocellulose (BNC) holds enormous potential for use in sustainable packaging. However, the production cost using the traditional culture medium, Hestrin-Scharamm (HS), hinders its commercialization, due to its composition with yeast extract and peptone. The dairy industry is one of the main sources of waste in the food industry, generating a variety of by-products during the production process, such as whey and cheese stretching water. BNC has significant advantages due to its superior mechanical strength, biodegradability, and ability to form transparent and flexible films, which are desirable properties in packaging materials.

Material e Métodos

In this study, a modified culture medium was developed using whey and cheese stretching water to produce BNC films from the Komagataeibacter xylinus strain during 7 days of fermentation. The control condition with HS medium and six conditions for the modified media were tested: (i) Pure by-product; (ii) HS + 20% by-product; (iii) HS + 50% by-product; (iv) HS without peptone replaced by the by-product; (v) HS without yeast extract replaced by the by- product; and (vi) HS without peptone and yeast extract replaced by the by-product.

Resultados e Discussão

The ideal pH for all tested conditions was between 4.5 and 4.7, and the total carbon and nitrogen content were evaluated. The wet weight of the films was higher than the control in condition (iv) for both whey and cheese stretching water.

Conclusão

Scanning electron microscopy analysis showed variation between the upper and lower surfaces of the films, with dense and porous regions among the conditions. Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy analysis confirmed that all characteristic peaks of BNC are present in all conditions. In this sense, the use of cheese stretching water as a substitute for peptone shows innovative potential for the production of low-cost, biodegradable, and eco-friendly BNC films.