Revista Brasileira de Ciências Ambientais (Dec 2018)

EXTRACTION AND CHARACTERIZATION OF BIOPOLYMERS FROM EXOSKELETON RESIDUES OF THE AMAZON CRAB DILOCARCINUS PAGEI

  • Ana Gracy Oliveira Ribeiro,
  • Márcia Loyana Pedreno Viana,
  • Gustavo Yomar Hattori,
  • Vera Regina Leopoldo Constantino,
  • Gustavo Frigi Perotti

DOI
https://doi.org/10.5327/Z2176-947820180398
Journal volume & issue
no. 50
pp. 97 – 111

Abstract

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Chitin is the second most abundant biopolymer worldwide and is found in a large variety of animals. Besides shrimps, other species possess significant chitin contents in their external non-edible fraction, thus allowing them to be also economically viable sources of this macromolecule. According to mass-loss evaluation of crab residues, 78.4% of the mass is comprised of CaCO3 and 21.6% associated to the organic phase. The chitin content found was 8.0% of the residue’s initial mass and after the deacetylation step, the average chitosan yield was 5.0% of the initial residue mass. The thermal decomposition profiles of obtained chitin and chitosan samples were characteristic of biopolymers, exhibiting non-oxidative (190–360°C) and oxidative (340–670°C) events of mass loss. Vibrational spectroscopic analysis showed that the degrees of deacetylation of the obtained chitosan samples were time-dependent and between 68.4 and 81.9%.

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