Prospects of microalgae in nutraceuticals production with nanotechnology applications

Tan KY 1 , Low SS 2 , Manickam S 3 , Ma Z 4 , Banat F 5 , Munawaroh HSH 6 Show all authors , Show PL 7

Affiliations 

  • 1 Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Science and Engineering, University of Nottingham Malaysia, Jalan Broga, 43500 Semenyih, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia
  • 2 Nottingham Ningbo China Beacons of Excellence Research and Innovation Institute, University of Nottingham Ningbo China, Ningbo 315100 China. Electronic address: Sze-Shin.Low@nottingham.edu.cn
  • 3 Petroleum and Chemical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Brunei, Bandar Seri Begawan BE1410, Brunei Darussalam
  • 4 National and Local Joint Engineering Research Center of Ecological Treatment Technology for Urban Water Pollution, Wenzhou 325035, China; College of Life and Environmental Science, Wenzhou University, Wenzhou 325035, China; Zhejiang Provincial Key Laboratory for Subtropical Water Environment and Marine Biological Resources Protection, Wenzhou University, Wenzhou 325035, China. Electronic address: mazengling@wzu.edu.cn
  • 5 Department of Chemical Engineering, Khalifa University, P.O. Box 127788, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
  • 6 Chemistry Program, Department of Chemistry Education, Faculty of Mathematics and Science Education, Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia, Jalan Dr. Setiabudhi, 229, Bandung 40154, Indonesia
  • 7 Zhejiang Provincial Key Laboratory for Subtropical Water Environment and Marine Biological Resources Protection, Wenzhou University, Wenzhou 325035, China; Department of Chemical Engineering, Khalifa University, P.O. Box 127788, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates; Department of Sustainable Engineering, Saveetha School of Engineering, SIMATS, Chennai 602105, India. Electronic address: showpauloke@gmail.com
Food Res Int, 2023 Jul;169:112870.
PMID: 37254319 DOI: 10.1016/j.foodres.2023.112870

Abstract

Nutraceutical supplements provide health benefits, such as fulfilling the lack of nutrients in the human body or being utilized to treat or cure certain diseases. As the world population is growing, certain countries are experiencing food crisis challenges, causing natural foods are not sustainable to be used for nutraceutical production because it will require large-scale of food supply to produce enriched nutraceutics. The high demand for abundant nutritional compounds has made microalgae a reliable source as they can synthesize high-value molecules through photosynthetic activities. However, some microalgae species are limited in growth and unable to accumulate a significant amount of biomass due to several factors related to environmental conditions. Therefore, adding nanoparticles (NPs) as a photocatalyst is considered to enhance the yield rate of microalgae in an energy-saving and economical way. This review focuses on the composition of microalgal biomass for nutraceutical production, the health perspectives of nutritional compounds on humans, and the application of nanotechnology on microalgae for improved production and harvesting. The results obtained show that microalgal-based compounds indeed have better nutrients content than natural foods. However, nanotechnology must be further comprehended to make them non-hazardous and sustainable.

* Title and MeSH Headings from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

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