Prospects of obtaining sodium alginate from brown algae of Caspian Sea

Abstract

The scientists and technologists focus on studying the traditional technologies of processing geophytes. Modern development trends in biotechnology demand the expansion of the raw material base. The growing needs of medicine, food and feed industries in biologically active substances call for increased attention to new unconventional sources of renewable raw materials. For example, the brown algae of the Caspian Sea can be considered as a perspective object due to a high concentration of the unique biologically active substances. There are discussed the prospects and possibilities of obtaining the alginic acid and its derivatives from the algae of the Volga-Caspian basin. The decisive role of polysaccharides of the algae has been defined. Expediency of using aquatic plants of the Volga-Caspian basin as alternative little-studied raw materials for further processing and obtaining the products of different uses is substantiated. Analysis shows that the list of plants used to isolate alginate or alginate-containing products should be expanded.