Chemical and Process Engineering (Jun 2016)

The influence of chitin structure on its enzymatic deacetylation

  • Jaworska Malgorzata M.,
  • Roberts George A.F.

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1515/cpe-2016-0021
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 37, no. 2
pp. 261 – 267

Abstract

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The possibility of producing chitosan by enzymatic deacetylation of chitin has been the subject of numerous investigations over the last twenty years, but to date no satisfactory method has been developed. In this paper the influence of chitin chain conformation and chitin particle crystallinity on the enzymatic deacetylation of chitin is investigated to determine the relative importance of these two factors on the process. It is shown that the high crystallinity of chitin is the main obstacle to converting chitin to chitosan by enzymatic deacetylation.

Keywords