Marine Biosurfactants: Potent Alternatives of Synthetic Surfactants

Marine biosurfactants are Surfactants of marine origin either produced by planktonic microorganisms of marine environment whether sea water or soil or produced by associated microorganisms with marine organisms. In general,biosurfactants are classified according to categories of; Molecular structure,molecular weight and microbial origin.Mineral salts medium “MSM” supplemented with a hydrophobic compounds is mainly used for biosurfactant production enhancement. Then,screening of biosurfactant activity is operated and it is based on qualitative tests which gave a true general indication of biosurfactant type and potency and quantitative test which gave a precise reading of the quantity of biosurfactant and its type. Qualitative tests are mainly; blood hemolysis,oil spreading test ,Emulsification index test “E24”,Drop collapse test and CTAB assay which detects anionic biosurfactants, no single method is suffiecient for detection of biosurfactant or bioemulsifier activity. While,a quantitative test gave us a precise reading of the surface tension, more than one qualitative screening method is required to prove a biosurfactant activity. Biosurfactants have been discussed by many studies on approximately all life aspect of food,agricultural,pharmaceutical,cosmetic, medical, laundry industry, petroleum industry, and environmental applications. They have proved efficiency which is similar or even better than synthetic surfactants. However, they are prefereed over synthetic ones in terms of biodegradability, environmental compatibility and in case of marine produced biosurfactants halophilic resistance which may be beneficial from economic point of view. So, many studies have focused on marine biosurfactants either for isolation of new potent strains, their identification using 16s rRNA or for their potentials’ applications utilizing their unique properties.