Polysaccharide biopolymer chemistry

Polysaccharides are polymeric carbohydrates naturally derived from living organisms, such as plants, algae, animals, fungi, bacteria, and/or other biological sources, and are therefore renewable, sustainable, and eco-friendly. Availability, chemical/mechanical stability, biocompatibility, biodegradability, reinforcement capability, ease of functionalization, variety of forms, cost effectiveness, and nonpolluting nature have steered research in the direction of natural polysaccharides. Hence, they have been recently investigated in a broad range of applications. Polysaccharides used to prepare sustainable biopolymers may be typically categorized as plant, animal, algal, bacterial, and fungal polysaccharides. In this chapter, the role of various living organisms such as polysaccharides found in plants (e.g., cellulose/hemicellulose, pectin, starch, glucomannan, inulin, and gum), algae (e.g., agar, alginate, ulvan, fucan, and carrageenan), animals (e.g., chitin, chitosan, and hyaluronic acid), fungi (e.g., pullulan, elsinan, and scleroglucan), and bacteria (e.g., xanthan gum, curdlan, dextran, and gellan) in the synthesis of a wide range of natural biopolymers is discussed. This chapter describes the source and production, chemical structure, functional groups, general features, characterization methods, and applications of polysaccharides.