Ionic Liquid Based Treatment – A Potential Strategy to Modify Bacterial Cellulose

Looking for technologies that can modify the bacterial cellulose (BC) in situ or ex situ is a challenge. Ionic liquid (IL) anions and cations have high mobility; they can penetrate deeper into aggregated BC chains, resulting in a more open mass fractal form. Moreover, IL assists in esterification, alkylation, oxidation, acetylation, and other chemical modifications which enhance the degradation of bacterial cellulose.

Abstract

The constant need for advanced materials led by modern research continues the exploitation of old remedies and innovation to find new solutions. The use of ionic liquids (ILs) as solvents has revolutionized modern chemical research. The non-toxic green technology has inspired new paradigms in chemical reactions and synthesis. Developing nontoxic materials for industrial and biomedical applications has endorsed the use of ILs in synthesis and fabrication. In terms of biomedical materials, the exploration for novel technologies to deal with chronic and nonhealing injuries desires degradable materials. One of the vastly used biomaterials is cellulose, which is nondegradable on its own unless digested by special enzymes produced by bacteria in nature. Bacterial cellulose (BC) is a naturally occurring more refined and purified form of cellulose which again is nondegradable on its own. Looking for technologies that can modify the BC in situ or ex situ is a challenge. This review is bound to give insight into the current scientific research being conducted to render BC degradable for biomedical applications. The data has been collected through Clarivate analysis, Google search, PubMed Central Identifier (PMCID), and Research Gate. The lack of available literature on this topic allowed us to include all the articles related to the subject as old as 1988 onwards.

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