Production of chitosan from exoskeleton of prawn

Abstract

Chitosan is made from chitin by a chemical process involving demineralization (DM), deproteinization (DP), and deacetylation (DA). The present study was undertaken to evaluate the effects of process modification during chitosan production on physicochemical properties of the exoskeleton of prawn's chitosans. There were six experimental chitosan samples, where four (DP (6hrs, 28 ° C) MA, DP (3hrs, 28 ° C) MA, DP (6hrs, 60 ° C) MA, and DP (3hrs, 60 ° C) MA were the traditional chitosan production process and remaining two (DM (2hrs) PA, DM (1hr) PA were prepared with modified processing protocols. All samples were subjected to physicochemical (ash and moisture content). Results indicated that the moisture content for the modified process was lesser than the traditional method. Moisture content that was produced by both traditional and modified was acceptable. Traditional method produce moisture content ranged from 6.10- 9 .75%, and modified method produce moisture content ranging from 3.15-8.15%. Even though both of the methods produce an acceptable amount, yet modified method still prevail to produce better result of moisture content. This study demonstrated that process modification of chitosan production from exoskeleton of prawn affected the physicochemical properties.