Microalgae – The new green? : biochemical composition, cultivation and extraction methods
Microalgae are a promising source of high value compounds for the food industry with both nutritional and health-beneficial qualities with potential to meet the dietary demand of the growing population. Microalgae are highly adaptive towards environmental stresses which is used as important tool for...
| Autores principales: | , |
|---|---|
| Formato: | M2 |
| Lenguaje: | Inglés sueco |
| Publicado: |
SLU/Department of Molecular Sciences
2021
|
| Materias: |
| Sumario: | Microalgae are a promising source of high value compounds for the food industry with both nutritional and health-beneficial qualities with potential to meet the dietary demand of the growing population. Microalgae are highly adaptive towards environmental stresses which is used as important tool for manipulation of the biomass for enhancement of metabolites.
Diverse species have been exploited so far and a handful are currently cultivated in large scale. However, one of the main challenges is to make them economically feasible for the production of industrially useful biomolecules. Some of the compounds in microalgae have low bioavailability due to low digestibility, therefore efficient technologies for extraction of these compounds are often needed. Recent technological advances in this field have been made to establish more scalable and sustainable methods to avoid the toxic solvents which often are involved and acquiring compounds with high purity. Important microalgae species for human nutrition include Chlorella and Arthrospira spp. which show higher protein contents compared to more common protein sources. Also, Crypthecodinium cohnii and Schizochytrium sp. have become important due to their capacity of producing high amounts of the omega-3 fatty acid docosahexaenoic acid (DHA). There is an established market for microalgal pigments with an especially high demand for β-carotene. Edible microalgae have been for a long time and still are an accepted part of the common diet in many Asian countries, while the Western culture, it still has a long way to go. The possibility of using microalgae and algae-derived compounds for functional foods have however gained increased interest in recent years and with the increasing development of algae-based products on the market, eventually, they might be a regular part of many people's diet. |
|---|