The Scottish Seaweed Research Association

Abstract

The production of chemicals from the brown seaweeds is one of the oldest branches of the chemical industry, having its origin as far back as 1720 when soda was first produced from kelp in France, and soon after taken up in Ireland, Scotland and Norway. Until the early nineteenth century this was the only source of this chemical on which the glass and soap industries were built up. When the cheap Leblanc soda later became competitive the industry was able ot switch to potash and iodine production, a demand for which had arisen about the same time. This industry reached sizeable proportion, as is evidenced by the fact that in 1820 more than 20,000 tons of kelp were produced in the Outer Hebrides, involving the collecting and burning of about a million tons of cast weed.