Purpose: Bacterial cellulose has numerous worldly applications, especially in the biomedical field, as a result of its unique properties. Knowing this, if food waste is an efficient alternative option of the culture medium in place of typically used mediums, this will not only save a substantial amount of money, but this will be doing the environment a favor as food waste continues to be a major issue in today’s society.
Picture 1: This is a picture of the three different types of fruit peel extracts I made in preparation to use as culture medias to grow the bacterial cellulose. After coming back to view the resulting cellulose, unfortunately the pomegranate and banana peel extracts didn't produce a significant yield and therefore, had to be counted out for the rest of the testing.
Picture 2: This is a zoom in of one sample of cellulose that was produced. It was more opaque because the culture medium was different but it had strong water absorbing properties that could be identified when taking the wet mass of the samples.
Picture 3: This is a picture of the Rigaku CRD Instrument, which was used to perform the XRD analysis on my cellulose sample. This was my first time seeing the newer machine, and it was really interesting how they were able to create a more compact version that still worked the same as the odler version.
Picture 4: This is a picture of my cellulose samples next to typical HS media produced samples, both placed in 24 well plates. Only the middle 8 wells were used to avoid evaporation, so when taking the masses of each sample, they would be as accurate as possible.