A Review on Biosurfactants and its Environmental Applications

Biosurfactants are widely known as surface active agents of biological origin. Glycolipid classes of biosurfactants has high important in the biotechnological arena. Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Bacillus subtilis, and Candida sp., are important classes of microorganism and highly investigated for the production of glycolipid biosurfactants. Commercially, microbial biosurfactants are more advantageous than chemical based biosurfactants due to their biodegradability, renewability and functionality maintenance under extreme operating conditions. In the oil spill areas hydrocarbon degrading microorganisms (isolated) were proven to produce enormous amount of biosurfactant than expected. This is due to the regulation of all the genomes in the synthesis of lipid metabolism. Currently, biosurfactants play vital role in oil and petroleum industries for emulsification in both recovery and removal process from the site of pollution. In addition, it has some role in the heavy metal removal of metallurgical industries. In the present paper, we have given the overview on screening of biosurfactant producing microorganisms, production methods and factors influencing the production of biosurfactants are investigated. Various analytical techniques used for processing of crude metabolites are also presented. Thus from this review, can easily understood the role of biosurfactant in the environmental cleaning.