For two millennia papermakers have utilised a huge number of 'higher' or vascular plants (that is those with lignified tissue for conducting water and nutrients around the plant) as the raw material for making paper. But in recent years, scientists have investigated the use of another grouping from the vegetable kingdom as a source of raw materials: algae. Rather than being a strict scientific genus, this is a collective term encompassing a huge number of unrelated, mainly water-dwelling plants (although there are terrestrial and even airborne varieties), ranging from unicellular microalgae (of a few microns in size, Figure 1) to large multicellular organisms such as giant kelp (which can grow to 50m or more in length). This primer will describe some of the properties and characteristics of this grouping, and their uses, particularly in papermaking, that are being investigated.
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