Biosurfactants are molecules that exhibit
pronounced surface and emulsifying activities,
produced by a variety of microorganisms. A host of
interesting features of biosurfactants, such as higher
biodegradability, lower toxicity, and effectiveness at
extremes of temperature, pH and salinity; have led to
a wide range of potential applications in the fields
of oil recovery, environmental bioremediation, food
processing and medicine. In spite of the immense
potential of biosurfactants, their use still remains
limited, mainly due to their high production and
extraction costs, low yields in production processes and lack of information on their toxicity towards human systems. However, the
use of cheaper substrates and optimal growth and production conditions
coupled with novel and efficient multistep downstream processing methods and
the use of recombinant and mutant hyper producing microbial strains can
make biosurfactant production economically feasible. Often, the amount and
type of a raw material can contribute considerably to the production cost; it is
estimated that raw materials account for 10 to 30% of the total production
costs in most biotechnological processes. Thus, to reduce this cost it is
desirable to use low-cost raw materials. One possibility explored extensively is
the use of cheap and agro-based raw materials as substrates for biosurfactant
production. A variety of cheap raw materials, including plant-derived oils, oil
wastes, starchy substances, cheese whey and distillery wastes have been
reported to support biosurfactant production. Future biosurfactant research
should, therefore, be more focused on the economics of biosurfactant
production processes, particularly through the use of alternative low-cost
fermentative media. This review looks at the future perspectives of large-scale
profitable production of biosurfactants
