Abstract
Chitin was first discovered by its name from the Greek word “chiton”, which means “mail coat”. It is indeed a polysaccharide made up of naturally occurring acetyl-D-glucosamine monomers. Hatchett was the first researcher who extracted chitin from the shells of mollusks (crabs and lobsters), prawns, and crayfish in 1799. Later in 1811, Henri Braconnot discovered chitin in the cell walls of mushrooms and called it “fungine”. Chitin and chitosan are abundant in the biosphere as essential components of many organisms’ exoskeletons and as by-products of the global seafood industry. The biopolymer must be deacetylated before chitosan can be produced. It can also be extracted using microbes in a biological extraction procedure. The development of products that take advantage of the bioactivities of the existing primary commercial source of chitin (crustacean) has lagged expectations. Also, the disadvantages of the present commercial source such as seasonality and competition for other uses among others has been one of the driving forces towards seeking alternative sources of chitin and chitosan in nature. This review highlights some of the efforts made by environmental scholars to locate possible commercial sources of chitin and chitosan in nature over time.
Highlights
Due to wastewater production and the manufacture of polymeric materials through different industrial processes, industrial development has posed numerous environmental challenges [1]
Insects can be used as a viable option for crustaceans as a source of chitin and chitosan for larger ecological and economic sustainability as bioconverterswhich arereared for organic waste management and animal feed processing [160]
One of the chief factors for this is that these biological processes are not exclusive to chitin and chitosan; they occur in other materials as well
Summary
Due to wastewater production and the manufacture of polymeric materials through different industrial processes, industrial development has posed numerous environmental challenges [1]. Chitin and chitosan have a wide spectrum of uses due to their abundance as well as their non poisonous effects and good biocompatibility [1,4] Other synthetic polymers such as nylon, polyethylene, polyester, teflon, and epoxy do not have many applications and may not draw quite so much interest. The seafood industry produces about 106 tonnes of waste per year, where the majority of which is composted or turned into low-value-added products such as animal feed and fertilizers. The primary large scale source of chitin and chitosan are reportedly exoskeleton of crustacean, which collect as a massive waste material from the sea food industry [20,30]. This review focuses on addressing the above questions in addition to a brief insight into the history and structure of chitin and chitosan as well as their chemical differences
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