Victória Oliva dos Reis’s research while affiliated with Universidade do Sul de Santa Catarina and other places

Bacterial cellulose (BC) has been studied as an alternative material in several segments of the food, pharmaceutical, materials and textile industries. The importance of BC is linked to sustainability goals, since it is an easily degradable biomaterial of low toxicity to the environment and is a renewable raw material. For use in the textile area, bacterial cellulose has attracted great interest from researchers, but it presents some challenges notably to its hydrophilic structure. This integrative review article brings together studies and methods related to minimizing the hydrophilicity of bacterial cellulose, in order to expand its applicability in the textile industry in its dry state. The databases consulted were Scopus, ScienceDirect, ProQuest and Web of Science, the documents investigated were scientific articles and the time period investigated was between 2015 and 2021. The results showed that although there are methods to make the BC membrane more hydrophobic, future studies in this regard and on other properties must continue so that bacterial cellulose can be commercially introduced in the textile sector.

Bacterial cellulose (BC) has been studied as an alternative material in several segments of the food, pharmaceutical, materials and textile industries. The importance of BC is linked to sustainability goals, since it is an easily degradable biomaterial of low toxicity to the environment and is a renewable raw material. For use in the textile area, bacterial cellulose has attracted great interest from researchers, but it presents some challenges, notably hydrophilicity due to its porous structure. This bibliometric review article gathers studies and methods related to minimizing the hydrophilicity of bacterial cellulose in order to expand its applicability in the textile industry. The databases consulted were ScienceDirect, ProQuest and Web of Science, the documents investigated were scientific articles and the time period investigated was between 2015 and 2021. The discussion is focused on the applicability of BC in the textile industry, highlighting the research needs, especially with regard to reducing wettability.