Microbial biopolymers and surfactants
Tony Gutierrez
Dad: we learned at school that microbes can be used to clean up fatty wastes. When we wash up, we use detergents to remove fats from the dishes. Do microbes also use detergents?
"Oil and water don’t mix!" While true, we often need to make them mix—like when washing dishes with detergent, which contains surfactants to remove oily residue. Similarly, microbes produce biosurfactants and bioemulsifiers to break oil into tiny droplets, increasing its surface area and "bioavailability" for degradation, such as during oil spill cleanup.
These substances are crucial for microbial biology and ecology but also have broad applications for humans. They are used in food production, beverages, medicine, personal care products, textiles, construction, and many other industries.