The First International Seaweed Symposium held in Edinburgh, UK, 1952: applied seaweed science coming of age

Abstract

Since the first commercial and systematic use of large brown algae for potash in the eighteenth century, chemists have applied their knowledge to benefit the industrial utilization of seaweeds. Towards the end of the nineteenth century, the focus of seaweed chemistry started to shift from the inorganic to the organic content. Trailing the chemists, seaweed botanists also became directly involved in the industrial efforts by surveying and assessing seaweed populations. In the 1930s, a modern seaweed industry emerged, based on seaweed polysaccharides and seaweed meal. Prior to World War II seaweed botanists, chemists and industrialists had no regular, joint international arena.