Sunday, November 18, 2018

Seaweeds: A multi-purposed bioresource well-suited for Integrated Sequential BioRefinery (ISBR) processing

by Dr Thierry Chopin

For the last six decades, westerners have been eating/using seaweeds without really knowing it because it has been through extracts known as phycocolloids – the gelling, thickening, emulsifying, binding, stabilising, clarifying and protecting agents known as carrageenans and agars (extracted from red seaweeds) and alginates (extracted from brown seaweeds) – used in the food, brewing, textile, pharmaceutical, biotechnological, coating, drilling, etc industries.
 


Why is your ice cream smooth and not full of big ice crystals? It contains carrageenans! The cocoa powder of your chocolate dairy drink is not all at the bottom of the bottle and you believe the product has not been on the shelf long: the microscopic carrageenan mesh did it again! Green olives with pimento strips inserted in the pit hole? Sorry, these strips are made of a carrageenan paste with a colourant and antioxidant (asthaxanthin from microalgae) and two drops of artificial pimento flavour! For fast relief of heartburn, you can take alginate tablets or liquids, which block acid reflux from your stomach. Some breweries have a clarifying step for your beer that involves the red seaweed called Irish moss.

Fine printing on textile/silk is only possible if the material has been soaked in a carrageenan or alginate solution, which will then keep the dye in place. All the DNA analyses used to identify who did the crime on the CSI television series: banding patterns on agar gels! How is the gyprock in your garage flame-retardant certified? It is coated with alginates. Wonder why the water does not go through the paper goblets of your water fountain at work? They are coated with carrageenans. Underground drilling is quite tough on bits; they need to be cooled down with alginate mud.


Read more HERE.

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