Anticoagulant low molecular weight fucans produced by radical process and ion exchange chromatography of high molecular weight fucans extracted from the brown seaweed Ascophyllum nodosum

The main non-enzymatic hydrolytic techniques used at an industrial level are ultrasound, microwaves, free radicals, or diluted acids.

“the main non-enzymatic hydrolytic techniques used at an industrial level are ultrasound (in the case of carrageenans, agarose and xylan), microwaves (for hydrolysis of exopolysaccharides obtained from Porphyridium cruentum), use of free radicals (for fucoidan and algae galactan), or the application of diluted acids (for example, phosphoric acid) [124,125,126,127,128,129,130].”

Products from free radical hydrolysis of fucoidans demonstrated better anticoagulant capacity than the original polysaccharide.

“Additionally, the obtained products demonstrated a better anticoagulant capacity with respect to the original polysaccharide [129].”

The free radical technique can hydrolyze fucoidans into low molecular weight compounds (≈8 kDa), requiring purification of the products.

“Other authors have demonstrated that this technique can be applied for the hydrolysis of fucoidans in low molecular weight compounds (≈8 kDa), although then it is necessary to apply other procedures for the purification of the obtained products [129].”