A Multi-parametric Optimization Strategy for Maximizing Bacterial Cellulose Production from Fermented Tea

Bacterial cellulose (BC) holds great significance as a sustainable raw material in the food, biomedical, cosmetic, electronic, and paper industries. A high concentration of carbon sources and other media components is required to increase the yield of BC, which increases the overall bioprocess cost. Thus, finding alternative substrates and developing optimizing strategies for the cost-effective production of BC becomes indisputable. In this study, the impact of tea leaves and sugar concentration, surface area to depth ratio, scaled-up volume, and different varieties of tea leaves on the production of BC from fermented tea or kombucha (kombucha-derived bacterial cellulose or KBC) has been studied in detail. It was found that 8.0% (w/v) sugar and 0.6% tea leaf concentration gave an optimum KBC productivity of 11.91 ± 0.18 g/L/d. A surface area to depth ratio of 186 cm gave the maximum productivity (29.74 ± 0.65 g/L/d) of KBC. Upscaling of fermenter volume resulted in an approximately two-fold increase in wet weight of KBC. Furthermore, the study also considers the reuse of spent tea leaves and processing waste given environmental sustainability. These outcomes aim to advance the understanding of KBC production, providing insights into maximizing its production for sustainable biomaterial synthesis with diverse applications.