ABSTRACT
With high nutritive value and health benefits, seafood and seafood products are highly demanded. To fulfil those demands, novel technologies have been employed to maintain quality of seafood. Apart from main products, value-added active ingredients or compounds from seafood processing by-products have gained increasing interest. Ultrasonication has been used extensively for extraction of several products and modification of various biomolecules. Ultrasonication assisted extraction (UAE) has been introduced to extract a number of marketable products such as gelatin, collagen, chitin, chitosan, oils, etc. from various marine sources. UAE is time saving and has been proved to be a potential technology for recovery of many compounds. Low power ultrasonication can improve the functional properties of seafood products via protein modification. It enhances solubility, foaming, emulsifying, and gelling properties of seafood proteins. Ultrasonication improves gelation of surimi gel and gelatin as well as increases properties of gelatin films by providing the uniform distribution of additives in gel or film network. It can facilitate the migration of target additives into seafood for better quality control. Additionally, it can be applied for analysis of seafoods. This chapter will provide basic knowledge about the principle of ultrasonication and its applications for the extraction of value-added products and quality improvement of seafoods, particularly related with protein functionalities.
