Bioengineered Cellulose Offers a New Route Beyond Plastic

In a world increasingly overwhelmed by plastic, all the way from the deepest ocean trenches to the highest mountain peaks—its harmful impacts are becoming clearer than ever. As plastic accumulates in waterways, threatens wildlife, leaches chemicals, and enters the food chain, the search for alternatives is gaining steam.  

Finding sustainable alternatives to plastic has driven M.A.S.R. Saadi, a doctoral student at Rice University in Houston, Texas, to study converting bacterial cellulose, a natural and biobased material, into a multi-purpose alternative to plastic.

Spinning bacteria into the future of materials

“The urgency to replace synthetic plastics with greener alternatives is central to addressing environmental and climate challenges,” Saadi said. “It is the most abundant biopolymer on Earth and can be sourced from both plants and microorganisms.”  

Unlike plant-derived cellulose, which often carries impurities, bacterial cellulose is remarkably pure. Its nanofibrillar structure offers a promising solution to the plastic problem, with potential uses in everything from water bottles and packaging to wound dressings and other everyday products.



“Inspired by growing global efforts—particularly in Europe—to upcycle microbial materials, I recognized bacterial cellulose as a promising candidate. As a materials engineer, I wanted to push its potential further through careful design and engineering, transforming it into a robust, multifunctional alternative to plastics,” Saadi said. 

Reflecting growing concerns about plastic pollution, the European Parliament voted in 2019 to ban single-use plastic items—such as straws, food containers—an effort to reduce marine litter and promote sustainable alternatives.

From lab innovation to scalable sustainability

Saadi’s paper presents a simple, scalable method to create strong bacterial cellulose sheets and multifunctional hybrid nanosheets using fluid flow in a rotational culture device. The resulting materials boast high strength, flexibility, foldability, transparency, and long-lasting mechanical stability, he said.  

One of the most innovative aspects of the project was creating a custom-designed rotational culture device where cellulose-producing bacteria is cultured in a cylindrical oxygen-permeable incubator continuously spun using a central shaft to produce directional fluid flow.

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“The ability to directly engineer in-situ functional composites further expands the scope and potential of the process,” Saadi said.

“The innovation here is in the device that constantly spins the culture while allowing oxygenation,” said Maksud Rahman, assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at the University of Houston and adjunct assistant professor of materials science and nanoengineering at Rice. “This process aligns the fibers along the axis of rotation, making the resulting material stronger.”  

Rahman had pitched in on the research, which required a partnership between mechanical engineering and synthetic biology.

“To do the work they needed to have someone in our lab or like a biological lab,” Rahman said. “Mechanical engineering labs are sort of dirty. You need to have a more controlled environment for these sorts of things.”

It took about seven to 10 days to grow the bacteria with the team working on such issues as preventing mold growth.

To enhance the cellulose and expand its functionality, the team added boron nitride nanosheets to the bacterial feed solution, producing bacterial cellulose–boron nitride hybrid nanosheets with superior mechanical strength (tensile strength reaching approximately 553 MPa) and improved thermal performance (dissipating heat three times faster than control samples). 

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“This scalable, single step bio-fabrication approach yielding aligned, strong and multifunctional bacterial cellulose sheets would pave the way towards applications in structural materials, thermal management, packaging, textiles, green electronics and energy storage,” Rahman said.

“If I were to dream of what bacterial cellulose can do, it would be like replacing cotton,” Rahman added. “There are ways to spin it into large fibers that can be woven into textiles.”  

Saadi mentioned there were many moments when the viability of bacterial cellulose was confirmed.  

“There were many small milestones, but one defining moment was when we successfully developed a cellulose–boron nitride composite. The uniform dispersion of nanoparticles within the cellulose matrix was a favorite moment for me,” he said.

The team has initiated the patent process and sees many potential markets: sustainable packaging, flexible and green electronics, energy storage devices, and food safety materials, among others. However, there are still challenges to overcome.

“The next steps involve addressing challenges in yield and scalability, as well as tailoring the material by incorporating additional functional additives,” Saadi said. “These advances will require continued research and collaborative effort within the broader community to fully realize the potential of this technology.” 

Noting that it makes a perfectly good material on its own, left at room temperature, Rahman described bacterial cellulose as “a program that nature made, and we’re learning how to code and modify it.”

Annemarie Mannion is a technology writer in Chicago.