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J. Jeevanandam et al.
14.1 Introduction
The utilization of renewable biological resources from living organisms to generate
food, energy, and materials is a significant driver of bioeconomies. There is a growing
attention among consumers in the utilization of natural products obtained from
microorganisms and plant-based materials to deliver novel functional product technologies that can contribute to industrial bioeconomy. The time required for plant
growth and the tediousness in the extraction of valuable products are the drawbacks of plant-based novel functional products to boost the bio-based economies
(Marchetti et al. 2014). Further, the factors of deforestation (Hoffmann et al. 2018),
bioprospecting (Krishnaswamy 2018), and biopiracy (Efferth et al. 2016) also hinders
the custom of using plants for the large-scale manufacture of commercial goods.
These challenges in plant-based commercial products lead to the introduction of
microorganisms, as a replacement, to extract valuable products (Patridge et al. 2016).
Among microbes, algae are unique organisms that are similar to plants in several
aspects, especially in photosynthesis. This exclusive property of algae, along with
their rapid growth in favorable conditions with less nutrient requirement gained
the attention of researchers to use them for natural product extraction and valuable
compounds, as a better alternative to plants (Trantas et al. 2015).
Algae are known to humanity for more than a thousand years and are involved in
human diet even before 14000 years, which was evident from archaeological excavation sites in Chile. Numerous pre-historic literatures from China, India, Ireland, and
historic literatures by eminent scientists, including Newton and Turner, mentioned
about algae, and its association with human food and medicine. It is noteworthy that
the global production of seaweeds gained a profit of about USD 6.7 billion, out of
which 95% are produced by commercial cultivation of aquatic lives for food called
mariculture from China and Indonesia (Wells et al. 2017). Two main types of algae,
namely, macro and micro algae are extensively present throughout the world, that
are classified based on their size (Verawaty et al. 2017), whereas aquatic and terrestrial algae are the types that are classified based on their habitat (Bharathiraja et al.
2015; Ismail et al. 2017). In both the habitats, micro and macro algae possess the
ability to grow extensively and, in several cases, the algal species helps to reduce the
complex chemical compounds, especially wastes, and simplify them to reduce their
toxic effect (Yu et al. 2019). Thus, the presence of algae either serves as a bioindicator of toxic content in the ecosystem (Parmar et al. 2016) or facilitates the in situ
bioremediation processes (Vidyashankar and Ravishankar 2016).
In recent times, microalgae are widely used in several applications, compared to
macroalgae, due to their rapid growth and smaller size. In addition, the advancements in the microalgal biotechnology increased their chances to be utilized in
several sectors for natural product fabrication to replace toxic chemical products,
food products, medicine, and nutraceuticals (Posten and Chen 2016). Photosynthetic microalgae are beneficial in yielding highly valuable metabolites such as
lipids, proteins, carbohydrates, lipids, and pigments (Priyadarshani and Rath 2012).
Among these bioactive compounds, natural organic pigments such as chlorophyll,
J. Jeevanandam et al.
14.1 Introduction
The utilization of renewable biological resources from living organisms to generate
food, energy, and materials is a significant driver of bioeconomies. There is a growing
attention among consumers in the utilization of natural products obtained from
microorganisms and plant-based materials to deliver novel functional product technologies that can contribute to industrial bioeconomy. The time required for plant
growth and the tediousness in the extraction of valuable products are the drawbacks of plant-based novel functional products to boost the bio-based economies
(Marchetti et al. 2014). Further, the factors of deforestation (Hoffmann et al. 2018),
bioprospecting (Krishnaswamy 2018), and biopiracy (Efferth et al. 2016) also hinders
the custom of using plants for the large-scale manufacture of commercial goods.
These challenges in plant-based commercial products lead to the introduction of
microorganisms, as a replacement, to extract valuable products (Patridge et al. 2016).
Among microbes, algae are unique organisms that are similar to plants in several
aspects, especially in photosynthesis. This exclusive property of algae, along with
their rapid growth in favorable conditions with less nutrient requirement gained
the attention of researchers to use them for natural product extraction and valuable
compounds, as a better alternative to plants (Trantas et al. 2015).
Algae are known to humanity for more than a thousand years and are involved in
human diet even before 14000 years, which was evident from archaeological excavation sites in Chile. Numerous pre-historic literatures from China, India, Ireland, and
historic literatures by eminent scientists, including Newton and Turner, mentioned
about algae, and its association with human food and medicine. It is noteworthy that
the global production of seaweeds gained a profit of about USD 6.7 billion, out of
which 95% are produced by commercial cultivation of aquatic lives for food called
mariculture from China and Indonesia (Wells et al. 2017). Two main types of algae,
namely, macro and micro algae are extensively present throughout the world, that
are classified based on their size (Verawaty et al. 2017), whereas aquatic and terrestrial algae are the types that are classified based on their habitat (Bharathiraja et al.
2015; Ismail et al. 2017). In both the habitats, micro and macro algae possess the
ability to grow extensively and, in several cases, the algal species helps to reduce the
complex chemical compounds, especially wastes, and simplify them to reduce their
toxic effect (Yu et al. 2019). Thus, the presence of algae either serves as a bioindicator of toxic content in the ecosystem (Parmar et al. 2016) or facilitates the in situ
bioremediation processes (Vidyashankar and Ravishankar 2016).
In recent times, microalgae are widely used in several applications, compared to
macroalgae, due to their rapid growth and smaller size. In addition, the advancements in the microalgal biotechnology increased their chances to be utilized in
several sectors for natural product fabrication to replace toxic chemical products,
food products, medicine, and nutraceuticals (Posten and Chen 2016). Photosynthetic microalgae are beneficial in yielding highly valuable metabolites such as
lipids, proteins, carbohydrates, lipids, and pigments (Priyadarshani and Rath 2012).
Among these bioactive compounds, natural organic pigments such as chlorophyll,