Original: https://doi.org/10.3390/polysaccharides4040022
Because people are increasingly worried about plastic pollution and fossil-fuel–based materials, natural polymers have become more popular. Among them, polysaccharides from macroalgae and microalgae are attractive because they are natural, abundant, and useful in many fields such as biology, medicine, and food science.
These algal polysaccharides can be used to make nanomaterials that serve as effective carriers in the food and pharmaceutical industries. For example, they can:
- carry drugs or nutrients,
- encapsulate active compounds, and
- deliver therapeutic agents directly to tumor tissues.
When used as functional food ingredients, polysaccharide-based nanomaterials can improve food texture and reduce calorie content. They can also be used to create food packaging with antioxidant and antimicrobial properties.
In medicine, these nanomaterials are biocompatible, biodegradable, and safe, making them useful for preventing and managing chronic diseases such as diabetes, obesity, and heart disease.
This review article explores how algal polysaccharides are used to make nanomaterials and highlights their applications in the food and biomedical industries. It also discusses algae as a source of polysaccharides, the types of nanomaterials that can be produced, recent research, and future industrial possibilities.