Lignocellulosic biomass is of great interest as an alternative energy resource because it offers a range of merits. Miscanthus × giganteus is a lignocellulosic feedstock of special interest, as it combines a high biomass productivity with a low environmental impact, including CO₂ emission control. The chemical composition of lignocellulose determines the application potential for efficient industrial processing. Here, we compiled a sample collection of Miscanthus × giganteus that had been cultivated in different climate regions between 2019 and 2021. The chemical composition was quantified by the conventional wet methods. The findings were compared with each other and with the known data. Starting as soon as the first vegetation year, Miscanthus was shown to feature the following chemical composition: 43.2–55.5% cellulose content, 17.1–25.1% acid-insoluble lignin content, 17.9–22.9% pentosan content, 0.90–2.95% ash content, and 0.3–1.2% extractives. The habitat and the surrounding environment were discovered herein to affect the chemical composition of Miscanthus. The stem part of Miscanthus was found to be richer in cellulose than the leaf (48.4–54.9% vs. 47.2–48.9%, respectively), regardless of the planation age and habitat. The obtained findings broaden the investigative geography of the chemical composition of Miscanthus and corroborate the high value of Miscanthus for industrial conversion thereof into cellulosic products worldwide.

Bacterial nanocellulose (BNC) whose biosynthesis fully conforms to green chemistry principles arouses much interest of specialists in technical chemistry and materials science because of its specific properties, such as nanostructure, purity, thermal stability, reactivity, high crystallinity, etc. The functionalization of the BNC surface remains a priority research area of polymers. The present study was aimed at scaled production of an enlarged BNC sample and at synthesizing cellulose nitrate (CN) therefrom. Cyclic biosynthesis of BNC was run in a semisynthetic glucose medium of 10−72 L in volume by using the Medusomyces gisevii Sa-12 symbiont. The most representative BNC sample weighing 6800 g and having an α-cellulose content of 99% and a polymerization degree of 4000 was nitrated. The nitration of freeze-dried BNC was performed with sulfuric-nitric mixed acid. BNC was examined by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and infrared spectroscopy (IR), and CN was explored to a fuller extent by SEM, IR, thermogravimetric analysis/differential scanning analysis (TGA/DTA) and ¹³C nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. The three-cycle biosynthesis of BNC with an increasing volume of the nutrient medium from 10 to 72 L was successfully scaled up in nonsterile conditions to afford 9432 g of BNC gel-films. CNs with a nitrogen content of 10.96% and a viscosity of 916 cP were synthesized. It was found by the SEM technique that the CN preserved the 3D reticulate structure of initial BNC fibers a marginal thickening of the nanofibers themselves. Different analytical techniques reliably proved the resultant nitration product to be CN. When dissolved in acetone, the CN was found to form a clear high-viscosity organogel whose further studies will broaden application fields of the modified BNC.

Bacterial nanocellulose (BNC) is a unique product of microbiological synthesis, having a lot of applications among which the most important is biomedicine. Objective complexities in scaling up the biosynthesis of BNC are associated with the nature of microbial producers for which BNC is not the target metabolite, therefore biosynthesis lasts long, with the BNC yield being small. Thus, the BNC scale-up problem has not yet been overcome. Here we performed biosynthesis of three scaled sheets of BNC (each having a surface area of 29,400 cm², a container volume of 441 L, and a nutrient medium volume of 260 L and characterized them. The static biosynthesis of BNC in a semisynthetic nutrient medium was scaled up using the Medusomyces gisevii Sa-12 symbiotic culture. The experiment was run in duplicate. The BNC pellicle was removed once from the nutrient medium in the first experiment and twice in the second experiment, in which case the inoculum and glucose were not additionally added to the medium. The resultant BNC sheets were characterized by scanning electron microscopy, capillary viscosimetry, infrared spectroscopy, thermomechanical and thermogravimetric analyses. When the nutrient medium was scaled up from 0.1 to 260 L, the elastic modulus of BNC samples increased tenfold and the degree of polymerization 2.5-fold. Besides, we demonstrated that scaled BNC sheets could be removed at least twice from one volume of the nutrient medium, with the yield and quality of BNC remaining the same. Consequently, the world’s largest BNC sheets 210 cm long and 140 cm wide, having a surface area of 29,400 cm² each (weighing 16.24 to 17.04 kg), have been obtained in which an adult with burns or vast wounds can easily be wrapped. The resultant sheets exhibit a typical architecture of cellulosic fibers that form a spatial 3D structure which refers to individual and extremely important characteristics of BNC. Here we thus demonstrated the scale-up of biosynthesis of BNC with improved properties, and this result was achieved by using the symbiotic culture.

Biodegradable bacterial nanocellulose (BNC) is a highly in-demand but expensive polymer, and the reduction of its production cost is an important task. The present study aimed to biosynthesize BNC on biologically high-quality hydrolyzate media prepared from miscanthus and oat hulls, and to explore the properties of the resultant BNC depending on the microbial producer used. In this study, three microbial producers were utilized for the biosynthesis of BNC: individual strains Komagataeibacter xylinus B-12429 and Komagataeibacter xylinus B-12431, and symbiotic Medusomyces gisevii Sa-12. The use of symbiotic Medusomyces gisevii Sa-12 was found to have technological benefits: nutrient media require no mineral salts or growth factors, and pasteurization is sufficient for the nutrient medium instead of sterilization. The yield of BNCs produced by the symbiotic culture turned out to be 44–65% higher than that for the individual strains. The physicochemical properties of BNC, such as nanofibril width, degree of polymerization, elastic modulus, Iα allomorph content and crystallinity index, are most notably dependent on the microbial producer type rather than the nutrient medium composition. This is the first study in which we investigated the biosynthesis of BNC on hydrolyzate media prepared from miscanthus and oat hulls under the same conditions but using different microbial producers, and showed that it is advisable to use the symbiotic culture. The choice of a microbial producer is grounded on the yield, production process simplification and properties. The BNC production from technical raw materials would cover considerable demands of BNC for technical purposes without competing with food resources.

One of the ways to enhance the yield of bacterial cellulose (BC) is by using dynamic aeration and different-type bioreactors because the microbial producers are strict aerobes. But in this case, the BC quality tends to worsen. Here we have combined static culture with aeration in the biosynthesis of BC by symbiotic Medusomyces gisevii Sa-12 for the first time. A new aeration method by feeding the air onto the growth medium surface is proposed herein. The culture was performed in a Binder-400 climate chamber. The study found that the air feed at a rate of 6.3 L/min allows a 25% increase in the BC yield. Moreover, this aeration mode resulted in BC samples of stable quality. The thermogravimetric and X-ray structural characteristics were retained: the crystallinity index in reflection and transmission geometries were 89% and 92%, respectively, and the allomorph Iα content was 94%. Slight decreases in the degree of polymerization (by 12.0% compared to the control―no aeration) and elastic modulus (by 12.6%) are not critical. Thus, the simple aeration by feeding the air onto the culture medium surface has turned out to be an excellent alternative to dynamic aeration. Usually, when the cultivation conditions, including the aeration ones, are changed, characteristics of the resultant BC are altered either, due to the sensitivity of individual microbial strains. In our case, the stable parameters of BC samples under variable aeration conditions are explained by the concomitant factors: the new efficient aeration method and the highly adaptive microbial producer―symbiotic Medusomyces gisevii Sa-12.

The present paper is a fundamental study on the physicochemical properties and hydrolysis behavior of cellulose samples differing in origin: bacterial, synthetic, and vegetal. Bacterial cellulose was produced by Medusomyces gisevii Sa-12 in an enzymatic hydrolyzate derived from oat-hull pulp. Synthetic cellulose was obtained from an aqueous glucose solution by electropolymerization. Plant-based cellulose was isolated by treatment of Miscanthus sacchariflorus with dilute NaOH and HNO₃ solutions. We explored different properties of cellulose samples, such as chemical composition, degree of polymerization (DP), degree of crystallinity (DC), porosity, and reported infrared spectroscopy and scanning electron microscopy results. The hydrolysis behavior was most notable dependent on the origin of cellulose. For the bacterial cellulose sample (2010 DP, 90% DC, 89.4% RS yield), the major property affecting the hydrolysis behavior was its unique nanoscale reticulate structure promoting fast penetration of cellulases into the substrate structure. The study on enzymatic hydrolysis showed that the hydrolysis behavior of synthetic and Miscanthus celluloses was most influenced by the substrate properties such as DP, DC and morphological structure. The yield of reducing sugars (RS) by hydrolysis of synthetic cellulose exhibiting a 3140 DP, 80% DC, and highly depolymerization-resistant fibers was 27%. In contrast, the hydrolysis of Miscanthus-derived cellulose with a 1030 DP, 68% DC, and enzyme-accessible fibers provided the highest RS yield of 90%. The other properties examined herein (absence/presence of non-cellulosic impurities, specific surface, pore volume) had no considerable effect on the bioconversion of the cellulosic substrates.