Chemical and biological routes for the valorization of macroalgal polysaccharides

With limited land resources to feed the increasing populations, mankind has set out exploring the vast expanse of water on earth. This quest has fueled explorations into unknown territories and extensive research to understand and evaluate aquatic life has been undertaken in the recent years. Marine life in recent years has been explored as potential sources for feedstocks that could satisfy human needs for food, feed, and fuel. Marine macroalgae and microalgae are becoming attractive biomass options and are being considered for large scale farming. Polysaccharides, proteins, and other biomolecules from these marine sources have diverse and unique compositions and can fuel large number of marine biotechnology based industries. Sequential recovery strategies aimed at effective polysaccharide separations are crucial to the exploitation of these technologies on the commercial scale, a major step towards significantly contribute to low-carbon economy. Valorization of the recovered biomolecules to the 4F's (Food, Feed, Fuel, and Functional Molecules) lays the need for the quest of new bio/chemical catalysts. The chapter reviews the different downstream approaches aimed at separation and isolation of all components and evaluates technologies available for the conversion of diverse biomolecules that find applications in the biofuel, biomedical, cosmetic, food, fine chemical, and pharmaceutical industries