A new route of production of the meso-porous chitosan with well-organized honeycomb surface microstructure from shrimp waste without destroying the original structure of native shells: Extraction, modification and characterization study

Abstract

The highly active bio-polysaccharide based compound namely chitin and chitosan have been extracted from shrimp shell which usually expelled out extensively from food processing industries and considered as waste materials. However, by conducting demineralization, de-proteinization and deacetylation on it which could be a new route of production of valuable meso-porous chitosan that possesses a noteworthy well-organized honeycomb like surface microstructure which undoubtedly capable to form sustainable bio-composites. Whereas the honeycomb like microstructures showed a well-defined pore canals (Pc) and pore canal tubes (Pct) onto their surface. The samples were characterized via ATR-FTIR spectroscopy, High resolution SEM, AFM, EDX, XRD and 13C solid-state Cross-Polarization Magic Angle Spinning (CPMAS) NMR. The molecular weight(M‾v) of isolated chitin and chitosan were determined by viscosity and the values were 1.06 × 106(DPv = 5228), 1.8 × 104(DPv = 116) respectively besides degree of deacetylation (DDA) were measured by ATR-FTIR spectroscopy, CPMAS NMR, pH-metric titration and the values were 24&21 for chitin and 84&82 for chitosan. The results suggest that the shrimp shell waste is an attractive source of well-organized honeycomb like meso-porous chitin and chitosan with regular surface microstructures which might have a significant/potential application into the sustainable bio-composite formulation due to various industrial and biomedical sector indeed.