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13 Modernisation
Phycocolloids: a discovery at the heart of seaweed
Ar fikoloidoù : un dizoloadenn e-kreiz ar bezhin
Today, phycocolloids — natural polysaccharides with thickening, gelling and binding properties, found in the cell walls of seaweed — are used in many areas of our everyday life.
Among the phycocolloids are:
- Agar-agar, extracted from red seaweed, discovered by chance in Japan in 1658, now common in our kitchens but also used in biotechnology and microbiology, where it serves as a medium for cell culture.
- Carrageenans, extracted from red seaweed, whose gelling properties were already used in cooking in Ireland, 400 years after Christ.
- Alginates, discovered in 1883 in brown seaweed by Edward Stanford, a Scottish chemist. Following an alkaline extraction on a frond of Laminaria digitata, he obtained a gelatinous substance.