Ololade Olatunji - Aquatic Biopolymers: Understanding their Industrial Significance and Environmental Implications

Polymers refer to macromolecules made up of repeating units of smaller molecules covalently bound together to form a bigger molecule. For example, proteins are polymers made up of amino acids, cellulose is made up of repeating units of glucose and polyethylene is made up of repeating units of ethylene. The units which join together to form polymers are referred to as monomers, and the process through which this is achieved is termed polymerization. Biopolymers refer to polymers which are produced by living organisms. The term aquatic biopolymers refers to biopolymers which are produced by living organisms that inhabit the aquatic ecosystem.

Since the beginning of the ages, polymers have played a significant role in human life in providing the most basic need, food, in the form of carbohydrates and proteins. As life advances, polymers have come to be of great importance to modern civilization, from the food we eat, the portable plastic bottles that give us convenient access to clean drinking water, the medicines we take, basic hygiene, tools and the fuels that run our engines. Polymers are fundamental to our existence as modern humans. Considering that the polynucleotides which form our DNA that carry the instructions for every life function are also polymers, it can therefore be said that polymers indeed make life. The aquatic environment is a rich source of a wide range of natural resources, and among those resources are polymers. They are found in the cell walls, tissues, exoskeletons, secretions and anatomical regions of aquatic organisms across the five kingdoms.

A large variation of factors exists in the aquatic environment. These variable factors include salinity, depth, light intensity, temperature, pressure, density, pH, prey/predator presence, nutrients, dissolved gases, water flow rate, flora and fauna. These factors determine the types of biochemicals produced by the different organisms to survive their environment, even more so where they are in such direct contact with the continuous medium (Christophe et al. ).

The diverse chemistry and bioactivity that can be derived from naturally sourced polymers add to their significance. This is of particular importance as increasing occurrence of cancer and other degenerative disease and resistance to existing antimicrobial drugs calls for more diverse and complex compounds existing in nature. The rain forests are often described as the medicine chest of the world. This is attributed to the presence of a diverse range of bioactive compounds which can be obtained from the diversity of organisms in the rain forest. The aquatic ecosystem consists of even more diverse range of organisms, and its existence and subsistence are crucial to that of the rain forest and life on earth. This book provides the reader with a rich understanding of the wide range of polymers which can be sourced from the aquatic environment, some of which have bioactivities such as anticancer and antimicrobial activities.