MBL's portfolio of biopolymers and other products is focused mainly on pharmaceutical, health and food applications.
MBL’s portfolio of biopolymers and other products is focused mainly on pharmaceutical, health and food applications. They can be drop-in replacements, identical to products already on the market or, in some cases, improvements on current products - for example, MBL’s “anti-reflux” alginate offers pharma formulators the opportunity to develop higher performance versions of current products or match current performance at lower API dosage levels. All MBL products are formaldehyde-free, can be customised to meet specifications and can be made under relevant GMP and food quality standards. The two main biopolymers available from MBL’s unique seaweed biorefinery are alginate and cellulose; others include fucoidan, laminarin, mannitol, low- Na salt, seaweed fibre and biostimulants.
Alginate is a unique biopolymer that dictates the physical structure of brown seaweeds. It is a “block copolymer” of two related monomers – β-D-mannuronic acid (M) and α-L-guluronic acid (G). Nature builds alginate from blocks of these monomers; typically, an alginate polymer will contain 3 different types of block – poly-M (several individual M units joined together), poly-G (several G units joined together and poly M/G (alternating M and G units joined together).
Nature uses this clever biochemistry to adapt seaweed’s physical properties to suit its marine habitat. For example, brown seaweeds growing in the inter-tidal zone typically have high poly-M content because it makes them flexible, allowing them to stretch up when the tide is in (and they are underwater) then hunker down in a heap for protection when the tide is out (and they are exposed on the beach). Conversely, seaweeds growing exclusively underwater have high poly-G content because the rigidity it confers allows them to create long “stems” that stretch up to capture sunlight.
Alginate is typically sold as a cream/white powder with various specifications depending on its application (e.g. viscosity, Ca level, particle size); it can also be sold as pre-formulated “performance blends” including other ingredients for specific applications.
This differentiation of alginate structures between seaweed species affects their suitability for different end uses. For example, high-G alginates (extracted from seaweeds with a high content of poly-G alginate blocks) perform best in “gelling” applications while high-M alginates are better in “thickening” applications. One of the key skills of MBL’s experienced chemists is to tailor the precise properties of an alginate to meet the specific performance requirements of a customer’s application.
Because of its versatility, alginate has an enormous range of well-established applications including:
MBL’s products are focused on higher value pharmaceutical and food applications.
Cellulose is the most abundant natural biopolymer on Earth; it is the basic building block of plants and trees, giving them their physical form and properties. It is also a building block – along with alginate – in seaweed structure, helping each species adapt to its specific marine environment. It is chemically simpler than alginate, essentially a linear polymer of individual D-glucose units joined together.
Its long, unbranched polymers and ability for them to hydrogen bond to each other leads to its fibrous nature and confers tensile strength to its plant-structuring function. It occurs naturally in different crystal forms.
Seaweed (algal) cellulose has similarities to its land plant analogues but the absence of lignin is a key difference. This has important implications for the manufacture and properties of seaweed nanocellulose, a unique, new product with truly exceptional in-use performance that can only be produced by using MBL’s CTS as its feedstock.
Cellulose and its derivatives have a very wide range of end uses in many industries. The major uses of cellulose are in production of paper and textiles but it is the use of cellulose derivatives in higher value applications that is most relevant to MBL.
In particular, it is the use of MBL’s unique seaweed cellulose for production of the much higher value seaweed nanocellulose that is the most exciting application area. Production of nanocellulose from conventional sources (wood pulp) is an energy intensive process and leads to products with variable and inferior performance and functionality.
In contrast, MBL’s seaweed cellulose, which can be produced via MBL’s biorefinery process, is easy to convert to seaweed nanocellulose. In addition to this ease of processing, its performance and applicability are much superior to wood/plant- sourced nanocellulose. Potential applications for MBL’s seaweed nanocellulose are also much higher value, particularly in the pharmaceutical sector where MBL engages in several projects with application partners