Microbial mining of value added products from seafood waste and their applications

Abstract

Waste management is the current focus of the decade towards a greener and cleaner environment. Waste management involves effective, safer and efficient methods that can degrade waste and reduce the release of pollutants. The seafood industry generates around 312 tons waste annually that poses a serious crisis for degradation and waste management. The marine waste contains valuable products like chitin, chitosan, their oligosaccharides, proteins, pigments, etc. which can be extracted and used for commercial applications. The chemical methods employed for their production have numerous disadvantages like low recovery, high cost and the release of hazardous effluents, thus biological conversion which is cost effective, efficient and environment friendly, is the best alternative to recover these value added products. This review describes the value added products that are biologically extracted from marine waste and their applications in the field of biotechnology.