Revista de biorremediación y biodegradación

Abstracto

Microbial Biosurfactants: From an Environmental Application Point of View

Rengathavasi Thavasi

Microbial biosurfactants are extracellular compounds produced by microbes such as bacteria, fungi and actinomycetes when grown in culture medium containing hydrophobic/hydrophilic substrates. Biosurfactants are surface active molecules having hydrophilic and hydrophobic moieties as their constituents which allow them to interact at interfaces and reduce the surface tension. Biosurfactants are classified into many groups based on their chemical composition as fatty acids, glycolipids, glycolipopeptides, glycoproteins, lipopeptides, phospholipids, polymeric and particulate biosurfactants [1]. The chemical diversity of biosurfactants make them a source for green chemicals having many potential applications for the environment. As compared to their chemical/synthetic counterparts, biosurfactants have unique properties such as high activity, less/or no toxicity, biodegradability and ease of production from renewable resources.