Chitosan Case Study

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Deacetylation process is involving removal of acetyl groups from molecular chain of chitin in order to produce chitosan containing high degree chemical reactive amine group (-NH2). This property affects its physiochemical properties, biodegradability and immunological activity, so it considered an important property for chitosan. Also it can differentiate between chitosan and chitin by determining the content of the free amino groups in the polysaccharides. The degree of deacetylation of chitosan varies between 56% and 99% with an average value of 80%, this percentage depends on the crustacean species and also the preparation methods. Chitosan is a high molecular weight biopolymer ranges from 100,000 and 1,200,000 Daltons while chitin is usually larger…show more content…
It was noticed that the process of decoloration causes a decrease in WBC of chitosan than those of unbleached crawfish chitosan. In FBC the chitosan have lower fat uptake than chitin as the fat uptake of chitosan is 170% and that of chitin is 315%. he reported that the average FBC of crawfish chitosan samples for soybean oil was 706% .The decoloration step was found to decrease FBC of crawfish chitosan. Also the decreased viscosity may be a cause for decreasing FBC in bleached and unbleached crawfish chitosan samples. Although chitosan alone doesn't produce emulsions but it was found that it enhances emulsifying capacity such as: emulsifying capacity of egg yolk is increased with the addition of chitosan than the control. It was found that viscosity and degree of deacetylation are factors that determine the emulsification properties of chitosan. Chitosan is suitable for use in food preservation; for control of psychotropic pathogen in fresh/processed meat and fish product because it has the ability to form film. Also chitosan can be used in fruit preservation as a coating

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