Research progress on water-soluble chitosan

Abstract

Chitosan has good film-forming property, adsorption, biocompatibility, biodegradability and antimicrobial properties, but it can only be dissolved in weak acidic aqueous solution and cannot be directly dissolved in water, which greatly limits its application. In order to increase its solubility in water, chitosan is modified, the research on the water-soluble derivatives of chitosan is reviewed in this paper, and its application in the protection of paper relics is briefly introduced. Chitin is a kind of natural polysaccharide macromolecular polymer synthesized by biology in animals and plants, which mainly comes from shrimp shelsl, crab shells, insect shells and so on. Chitosan (CS) is obtained by deacetylation of chitin. The chitin is deacetylated under homogeneous conditions, and water-soluble product can be obtained by controlling the degree of deacetylation at about 50% [1]. The primary hydroxyl group, secondary hydroxyl group and amino group on the glucosamine unit in the chitosan molecular chain, with strong reactivity, which can be modified and embellished by functionalization to improve its solubility.

Keywords

• Chitosan
• Water-solublility
• Protection of cultural relics