A fermentation process for the in situ intercalation of surfactin into layered double hydroxides

This work describes a novel in situ fermentation process to intercalate bioactive surfactin molecules into layered double hydroxides (LDH). The direct intercalation of surfactin into the LDH could only yield partially-intercalated surfactin/LDH hybrids, which were a mixture of LDH with the intercalated spacings of 10.8 Å and the pristine LDH at 8.3 Å. In contrast, the in situ fermentation process resulted in a fully intercalated surfactin/LDH...