Chapter 20 - Seaweed Polysaccharides and Their Production and Applications

Abstract

Marine algae are known as seaweeds, found to be growing throughout the world. Seaweeds are plant like organism; commonly live in ocean attached to the rock (or) other hard substrata, as well as in rivers, lakes and other water bodies. Since, the mid-19th century, seaweeds were divided into four different groups, based on the color: green algae, brown algae, red algae, and blue–green algae. In this 21st century, seaweeds can be consider as food supplement, because they are chock-full of bioactive substances comprising polyphenols, polysaccharides, amino acids, vitamins, minerals, essential trace elements and fiber, and also can be tasty to be used as food. It had possessed bioactive substances; they are being used as an antiviral, antitumor, antiinflammatory, antioxidant, antidiabetic, antibacterial, antiasthmatic, and antioxidant. In this modern era, seaweeds are widely being used in many industries, such as food processing industry, chemistry, biofuel, biomass, and pharmaceutical and cosmetics industry. In most cases, the seaweeds are used in human and animal foods for their mineral contents (or) for the functional properties of their respective polysaccharides. In nature, polysaccharides have numerous resources from seaweed. Branches of seaweed groups differed from their reserve and cell wall polysaccharides. The polysaccharides have a huge quantity of reactive groups, a wide range of molecular weight (MW), varying chemical compound, which contribute to their diversity in structure and property.