Effect of Solvents on the Production of N-Acetyl Glucosamine as a Result of Enzymatic Hydrolysis of Chitin from Shrimp Shell Waste

N-Acetyl glucosamine (GlcNAc) or 2-acetamido-2-deoxy-D-glucose is a simple amino sugar that is a monosaccharide that has an amino group in its structure. GlcNAc is very potential to be used in industry because it has many significant applications and has high efficiency. GlcNAc can be obtained by chemical hydrolysis or enzymatic degradation of chitin compounds using the enzyme chitinase. o get GlcNAc it is necessary to carry out enzymatic isolation of chitin, purification using several solvents and characterization. This study aims to look at the effect of solvents on the production of N-Acetyl glucosamine which has been hydrolyzed from chitin enzymatically with the enzyme chitinase. The N-acetyl glucosamine produced was determined by HPLC, XRD and IR-Spectrophotometer. Purification results with ethanol, methanol, acetone and acetonitrile solvents give chromatogram results at a retention time of about 3.1. FT-IR results indicate the presence of functional groups N - H, C - H, O - H and C = O which are also found in standard N-Acetyl glucosamine. The crystallinity test results showed a major peak of 2 ie 10; 15, 20 and 30. Purification using ethanol solvent showed the highest purity results compared to other solvents and also showed physical and chemical characteristics that were close to standard N-acetyl glucosamine.