Recent advances and discoveries of microbial-based glycolipids: Prospective alternative for remediation activities.

Surfactants have always been a prominent chemical that is useful in various sectors (e.g., cleaning agent production industry, textile industry and painting industry). This is due to the special ability of surfactants to reduce surface tension between two fluid surfaces (e.g., water and oil). However, the current society has long omitted the harmful effects of petroleum-based surfactants (e.g., health issues towards humans and reducing cleaning ability of water bodies) due to their usefulness in reducing surface tension. These harmful effects will significantly damage the environment and negatively affect human health. As such, there is an urgency to secure environmentally friendly alternatives such as glycolipids to reduce the effects of these synthetic surfactants. Glycolipids is a biomolecule that shares similar properties with surfactants that are naturally synthesized in the cell of living organisms, glycolipids are amphiphilic in nature and can form micelles when glycolipid molecules clump together, reducing surface tension between two surfaces as how a surfactant molecule is able to achieve. This review paper aims to provide a comprehensive study on the recent advances in bacteria cultivation for glycolipids production and current lab scale applications of glycolipids (e.g., medical and waste bioremediation). Studies have proven that glycolipids are effective anti-microbial agents, subsequently leading to an excellent anti-biofilm forming agent. Heavy metal and hydrocarbon contaminated soil can also be bioremediated via the use of glycolipids. The major hurdle in the commercialization of glycolipid production is that the cultivation stage and downstream extraction stage of the glycolipid production process induces a very high operating cost. This review provides several solutions to overcome this issue for glycolipid production for the commercialization of glycolipids (e.g., developing new cultivating and extraction techniques, using waste as cultivation medium for microbes and identifying new strains for glycolipid production). The contribution of this review aims to serve as a future guideline for researchers that are dealing with glycolipid biosurfactants by providing an in-depth review on the recent advances of glycolipid biosurfactants. By summarizing the points discussed as above, it is recommended that glycolipids can substitute synthetic surfactants as an environmentally friendly alternative.

Whole-genome analysis and secondary metabolites production of a new strain Brevibacillus halotolerans 7WMA2: A potential biocontrol agent against fungal pathogens.

The extensive usage of synthetic fungicides against fungal diseases has caused adverse impacts on both human and agricultural crops. Therefore, the current study aims to establish a new bacterium 7WMA2, as a biocontrol agent to achieve better antifungal results. The strain 7WMA2 was isolated from marine sediment, displayed a broad spectrum of several fungi that includes Alternaria alternata, Cladosporium sp., Candida albicans, Fusarium oxysporum, Trichosporon pullulans, and Trichophyton rubrum. The 16S rRNA phylogeny inferred that strain 7WMA2 was a member of Brevibacillus. The phylogenetic and biochemical analyses revealed that the strain 7WMA2 belongs to the species of Brevibacillus halotolerans. The complete genome sequence of Brevibacillus halotolerans 7WMA2 consists of a circular chromosome of 5,351,077 bp length with a GC content of 41.39 mol %, including 4433 CDS, 111 tRNA genes, and 36 rRNA genes. The genomic analysis showed 23 putative biosynthetic secondary metabolite gene clusters responsible for non-ribosomal peptides, polyketides and siderophores. The antifungal compounds concentrated from cell-free fermentation broth demonstrated strong inhibition of fungi, and the compounds are considerably thermal stable and adaptable to pH range 2-12. This complete genome sequence has provided insight for further exploration of antagonistic ability and its secondary metabolite compounds indicated feasibility as biological control agents against fungal infections.

Recent advances of biosurfactant for waste and pollution bioremediation: Substitutions of petroleum-based surfactants.

Biosurfactant is one of the emerging compounds in the industrial sector that behaves similarly with their synthetic counterparts, as they can reduce surface and interfacial tension between two fluids. Their unique properties also enable biosurfactant molecules to be able to clump together to form micelles that can capture targeted molecules within a solution. Biosurfactants are compared with synthetic surfactants on various applications for which the results shows that biosurfactants are fully capable of replacing synthetic surfactants in applications including enhanced oil recovery and wastewater treatment applications. Biosurfactants are able to be used in different applications as well since they are less toxic than synthetic surfactants. These applications include bioremediation on oil spills in the marine environment and bioremediation for contaminated soil and water, as well as a different approach on the pharmaceutical applications. The future of biosurfactants in the pharmaceutical industry and petroleum industry as well as challenges faced for implementing biosurfactants into large-scale applications are also discussed at the end of this review.

Sustainable smart photobioreactor for continuous cultivation of microalgae embedded with Internet of Things.

This research work aims to fabricate an optimized up-scaled photobioreactor and extraction tank which incorporates the Internet of Things (IoT) for remote monitoring of selected parameters without being present in the lab as the industry is gradually moving towards the direction of remote operation. Several design factors were considered where modelling using ANSYS was carried out before the finalised design is drawn using AutoCAD. To monitor critical parameters that include liquid level, temperature, and pH condition during the operation of the tanks, water-proof sensors are implemented with the aid of Arduino NodeMCU board and the sensors are linked with Blynk, a smartphone application that allows remote monitoring via Wi-Fi connection. The sensors' results obtained using the Blynk application show high accuracy as compared with manual data except for photobioreactor liquid level. This shows that IoT and remote monitoring can be integrated successfully.

A comprehensive review on the techniques for coconut oil extraction and its application.

Virgin coconut oil is a useful substance in our daily life. It contains a high percentage of lauric acid which has many health benefits. The current industry has developed several methods to extract the oil out from the coconut fruit. This review paper aims to highlight several common extraction processes used in modern industries that includes cold extraction, hot extraction, low-pressure extraction, chilling, freezing and thawing method, fermentation, centrifugation, enzymatic extraction and supercritical fluid carbon dioxide. Different extraction methods will produce coconut oil with different yields and purities of lauric acid, thus having different uses and applications. Challenges that are faced by the industries in extracting the coconut oil using different methods of extraction are important to be explored so that advancement in the oil extraction technology can be done for efficient downstream processing. This study is vital as it provides insights that could enhance the production of coconut oil.