Bacterial Cellulose Composites, Synthetic Strategies, and Applications

Cellulose is an important natural polymer composed of a large network of glucose units linked together by glycosides. Cellulose has crystalline structure due to the presence of strong hydrogen bonding. There are two main sources of cellulose, plants and microorganisms like bacteria. The cellulose obtained from bacteria is known as bacterial cellulose. Bacterial cellulose is almost similar to plant cellulose except for the degree of polymerization and purity. Bacterial cellulose has many distinguished properties like a highly crystalline nature with high water-holding capacity and a suitable matrix for synthesizing composites. However, certain characteristics of bacterial cellulose limit its application, such as its lack of antimicrobial activity and its electrical and magnetically nonconductive nature. BC is therefore impregnated with various materials to overcome these limitations. For making BC composites, many materials like nanomaterials and polymers have been introduced using different strategies like in situ, ex situ, and solution blending. The resulting BC-based composites have many applications in wound healing, tissue regeneration, and bone reconstruction, and their hydrogel-like properties and optical properties enable them to be used in biomedical industries and as biosensing technology. This chapter highlights BC’s basic features, its limitations, and the way to overcome these faults by synthesizing composites using different techniques, which are compared. The applications of different BC-based composites are discussed. especially for tissue regeneration and optical purposes.