The Nanocellulose Fibers from Symbiotic Culture of Bacteria and Yeast (SCOBY) Kombucha: Preparation and Characterization

Abstract

Symbiotic Culture of Bacteria and Yeast (SCOBY) is a by-product in the form of cellulose polymers produced by bacteria in the kombucha fermentation process. Until now, SCOBY products still have application limitations. Several world designers have succeeded in making works using fabrics based on SCOBY. The resulting fabric has a flexible texture and is brown like synthetic leather. Fabrics based on SCOBY are also considered cheap and more environmentally friendly with short production time. The use of SCOBY as a fabric base material still has problems, where the fabric produced from SCOBY kombucha, directly through the drying process, has the characteristic of being very easy to absorb water. Another problem is that SCOBY production in the kombucha fermentation process is difficult to achieve a uniform thickness and SCOBY production in a large surface area is also difficult to stabilize. The development of SCOBY into cellulose fibers can be done by first changing the structure of SCOBY into nanocellulose. This nanocellulose production can then be developed into nanocellulose fibers in the form of threads and then spun to become a complete fabric. The production of nanocellulose is carried out using cellulase enzymes. It is known that cellulase enzymes can be obtained through the growth of bacteria or specific fungi. One of the groups of fungi and bacteria commonly used to produce cellulase enzymes are Trichoderma and Bacillus.