In the last decade, an increasing number of glycosaminoglycans (GAGs), chitin and chitosan applications have been reported. Their commercial demands have been extended to different markets, such as cosmetics, medicine, biotechnology, food and textiles. Marine wastes from fisheries and aquaculture are susceptible sources for polymers but optimized processes for their recovery and production must be developed to satisfy such necessities. In the present work, we have reviewed different alternatives reported in the literature to produce and purify chondroitin sulfate (CS), hyaluronic acid (HA) and chitin/chitosan (CH/CHs) with the aim of proposing environmentally friendly processes by combination of various microbial, chemical, enzymatic and membranes strategies and technologies.

Hyaluronic acid is one of the biopolymers most commonly used by the pharmaceutical industry. Thus, there is an increasing number of recent works that deal with the production of microbial hyaluronic acid. Different properties and characteristics of the fermentation process have been extensively optimised; however, new carbon and protein sources obtained from by-products or cheap substrates have not yet been studied.