Water Holding and Release Properties of Bacterial Cellulose Produced from Oil Palm Frond Juice

Abstract

Water holding and release properties are important characteristics for a dressing material in wound healing. In the present study, the water holding capacity (WHC) and water release rate (WRR) of BC films produced from oil palm frond (OPF) juice were investigated. The juice was inoculated with Acetobacter xylinum in 24-well plates and incubated at 30 °C for 7 days under static conditions. The films were further dried by three different methods; air-, oven-and freeze-drying. The dried BC was characterized for its size and surface morphology by field emission-scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM) and for its water holding and release properties. BC produced from OPF juice exhibited good WHC and WRR comparable to BC films produced from Hestrin and Schramm (HS) medium. The loosely arranged fibrils in freeze-dried BC has also resulted in highest WHC and WRR value compared to the oven-and air-dried BC. This study suggested that water holding and release properties are greatly dependent on the use of fermentation medium and drying method.

Bacterial Cellulose Production From Oil Palm Frond Juice and Its Impregnation With Silver Nanoparticles for Antibacterial Wound Dressing

“…Skin cells such as keratinocytes and fibroblasts have also demonstrated good biocompatibility with the BC composite loaded with nanoparticles (Sabarees et al, 2022). Moreover, our recent study has shown that AgNPs impregnated into BC composite can provide a favourable moisture environment with good water holding and release properties comparable to pure BC (Abu et al, 2021;2022).…”