Microbial nanocellulose biotextiles for a circular materials economy

Schiros, Theanne; Antrobus, Romare; Farías, Delfina; Chiu, Yueh-Ting; Joseph, Christian Tay; Esdaille, Shanece; Sanchirico, Gwen Karen; Miquelon, Grace; An, Dong; Russell, Sebastian T.; Chitu, Adrian M.; Goetz, Susanne; Chassé, Anne Marika Verploegh; Nuckolls, Colin; Kumar, Sanat K.; Lu, Helen H.

doi:10.1039/d2va00050d

Cited by 15 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 36 publications

(40 reference statements)

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“…Rather than harnessing technologies to decompose clothing into usable parts, some researchers are designing textiles that break down naturally—possibly even in a backyard composter. Through research with Helen Lu, a biomedical engineer at Columbia University and fellow Werewool cofounder, Schiros developed a compostable “bioleather” ( 7 ). To make this material, the team adds a bacterial species called Komagataeibacter xylinus to a solution of sugar and other nutrients.…”

Section: Designed To Decaymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…But generating them requires lots of land and water. “Instead of plant cellulose, we are using bacteria as the producer,” says Romare Antrobus, a biomedical engineering graduate student at Columbia and co-lead author on the work ( 7 ).…”

Section: Designed To Decaymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As a test, Schiros buried small bioleather pieces in a pot of soil from her backyard. After 60 days, the material had lost over 60% of its mass and was starting to crumble ( 7 ).…”

Section: Designed To Decaymentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Can nature inspire sustainable fashion?

Beans¹

2023

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Section: Designed To Decaymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Designed To Decaymentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Can nature inspire sustainable fashion?

Beans¹

2023

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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“…Nanocellulose meets today’s demand to contribute to a circular economy, and its production and use can help industries move from a linear economy to a circular one [ 9 ]. It is a material that can be produced from many lignocellulosic materials, such as wood waste, plant or other agricultural waste, etc.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effect of a Nanocellulose Addition on the Mechanical Properties of Paper

Bárta,

Hájková,

Sikora

et al. 2023

Polymers

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Nowadays, the emphasis is on increasing the durability of all products. For this reason, it is also advisable to look into extending the durability of paper products. The main reason for using flax pulp is that flax and cotton pulp are widely used for the production of banknotes due to their higher strength. This paper deals with flax pulp with the addition of nanocellulose, which should further enhance the mechanical properties of the pulp. The tensile strength, breaking length, and tensile energy absorption index were evaluated as the key mechanical properties. At the same time, the effect of the addition of nanocellulose, whether it was added to the pulp mass or applied to the later produced paper as a spray or coating, was tested in comparison to paper without the addition of nanocellulose. The best mechanical properties, i.e., tensile strength, were achieved for the highest addition of 5% of nanocellulose into the pulp, at 24.3 Nm∙g−1, and for the coating application, at 28.7 Nm∙g−1, compared to the flax pulp without the addition, where the tensile strength was 20.5 Nm∙g−1. The results of this research are used for the assessment of nanocellulose as a natural compatible additive to enhance the strength properties of cellulose-based materials.

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“…To reduce the impact of this industry, new sustainable biomaterials are under commercial development. These include mycelium and plant fiber-based leather alternatives [4][5][6] . These endeavors are the successful result of combining biological production with engineering and chemical processing to refine these natural biomaterials into alternative textiles.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Self-pigmenting textiles grown from cellulose-producing bacteria with engineered tyrosinase expression

Walker,

Li,

Keane

et al. 2024

Nat Biotechnol

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Environmental concerns are driving interest in postpetroleum synthetic textiles produced from microbial and fungal sources. Bacterial cellulose (BC) is a promising sustainable leather alternative, on account of its material properties, low infrastructure needs and biodegradability. However, for alternative textiles like BC to be fully sustainable, alternative ways to dye textiles need to be developed alongside alternative production methods. To address this, we genetically engineer Komagataeibacter rhaeticus to create a bacterial strain that grows self-pigmenting BC. Melanin biosynthesis in the bacteria from recombinant tyrosinase expression achieves dark black coloration robust to material use. Melanated BC production can be scaled up for the construction of prototype fashion products, and we illustrate the potential of combining engineered self-pigmentation with tools from synthetic biology, through the optogenetic patterning of gene expression in cellulose-producing bacteria. With this study, we demonstrate that combining genetic engineering with current and future methods of textile biofabrication has the potential to create a new class of textiles.

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Microbial nanocellulose biotextiles for a circular materials economy

Abstract: The synthesis and bottom-up assembly of nanocellulose by microbes offers unique advantages to tune and meet key design criteria—rapid renewability, low toxicity, scalability, performance, and degradability—for multi-functional, circular economy textiles....

Cited by 15 publications

References 36 publications

Can nature inspire sustainable fashion?

Can nature inspire sustainable fashion?

Effect of a Nanocellulose Addition on the Mechanical Properties of Paper

Self-pigmenting textiles grown from cellulose-producing bacteria with engineered tyrosinase expression

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