Enhancing bacterial cellulose production via adding mesoporous halloysite nanotubes in the culture medium

Although bacterial cellulose (BC) is a fascinating, highly pure cellulose material for various downstream applications, production has been challenged by its low productivity. This work reported a facile route to significantly enhance BC yield without compromising its structural advantages via adding mesoporous halloysite nanotubes (HNTs) in the culture medium at static cultivations. The BC productivity of Gluconacetobacter xylinus was increased from 2.2 to 5.9 g L^-1 after 15 days of cultivation when 2 wt% of HNTs was added into the standard fructose medium. It appeared that the dual functionality of cell immobilization and oxygen release of the HNTs were responsible for enhancing the BC productivity. Moreover, the HNTs-resulted BC pellicle exhibited negligible content of HNTs contamination (∼2 wt%), higher degree of crystallinity (87.7%) and porosity (assessed by water holding capacity, 12.7 g g^-1), and showed promising applications especially in the bio-adsorption field.