Bacterial cellulose for emerging contaminants: A review of applications for PFAS, nanoplastics, and endocrine disruptors in water treatment

Emerging contaminants, including per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), nanoplastics, and endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs), pose significant threats to water quality due to their persistence, toxicity, and resistance to conventional treatments. This review is the first to comprehensively evaluate bacterial cellulose (BC), a biodegradable nanofibrillar polysaccharide produced by Komagataeibacter species, as a versatile platform for mitigating these contaminants, addressing a critical gap compared to broader reviews on emerging contaminants or other materials. BC's high surface area, mechanical strength, and tunable chemistry enable adsorption, photodegradation, and biodegradation, achieving 90-98 % removal efficiencies for PFOS, nanoplastics, and EDCs. Functionalization like carboxymethylation, zwitterionic coatings, and composites with metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), TiO₂, or graphene oxide enhance selectivity and capacity through electrostatic attraction, hydrophobic interactions, and π-π stacking. Microbe immobilization on BC facilitates EDC biodegradation, while machine learning-guided designs optimize surface chemistry. Challenges include selectivity in complex wastewater matrices, scalability, high production costs, and regulatory hurdles, addressed through agricultural waste feedstocks, airlift bioreactors, and ISO-compliant testing. This review synthesizes BC's transformative potential, compares its performance to traditional technologies, and proposes a research roadmap integrating hybrid systems and pilot-scale validation for sustainable water treatment.