Plant Biotechnology

Project Description

Industrial waste is a major environmental problem in Pakistan and worldwide. There are different kinds of industrial waste which cause the pollution and may leads hazardous effects on the environment, health, agriculture, marine life and various others. Clean technology is an idea to recover and reuse the wastefor other purposes providing added value and many advantages. Taking this idea the industrial waste can be converted into highly valuable products including bio-ethanol many others. Recently, our group had discovered that some industrial wastes can be use as growth media for bacteria to produce bacterial cellulose (BC). BC is a biopolymer produced by a class of acetic acid bacteria, has received tremendous interest in various sectors including biomedical fields owing to its specific physico-mechanical properties. The unique properties of BC include a high water-holding capacity, slow water release rate, high crystallinity, biocompatibility, biodegradability, ultrafine web-shaped fiber network structure and the possibility to be molded into various forms during production. These intrinsic properties make BC excellent for industrial application especially in medical sciences.Moreover,the BC-nano-reinforced composite films can be made with superior activities. Therefore, we propose the current study to produce highly valuable biomedical material BC from wastes including sugar, juice, food and various other industrial wastes under static and shaking conditions by the use of micro-organisms.  The production of BC from chemically defined Hestrin–Schramm (HS) medium will be considered as control. The chemical structure of BC samples will be confirmed through Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) and X-ray crystallography (XRD) diffraction analysis. Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy (FE-SEM) analysis will be performed to know about the fibril arrangement. Water holding capacity, mechanical and thermal properties will also be studied. The successful completion of this study will provide a base for the use of clean technology in Pakistan. Overall, this study will use clean technology to convert waste into highly valuable medical product which will improve wastes management and health condition of local community through reducing pollution and providing biomedical material. It will also better the economic condition by providing cheap source biomedical materials which will reduce financial burden on the health care system of the country.

Project Funding

Sr. No.Funding BodyFunds
1 CUI 0.15 Million Rupee

Members

  • Shahid Masood Shah