Extraction and Characterization of Chitosan from Crustacean Waste: A Constructive Waste Management Approach

Biopolymer based products grabbed much attention of researchers today for its various eco and bio friendly properties. From several studies it is understood that ocean ecosystem is one of the major source of biopolymer particularly chitosan. Chitosan is an amino polysaccharide known for its distinctive properties besides biodegradability and biocompatibilities are more imperative. Simultaneously, sea food waste is one of the major issues today and it causes several environmental hazards if not addressed properly. Hence, the crustacean waste is the prime focus of the present study to extract chitosan for various biomedical applications and the extraction was done from shrimp and crab shell waste by chemical method. The process was preceded with several steps like deprotenation, demineralization, decolourization and deacetylation. The extracted chitosan was subjected to several characterizations like physio chemical parameters includes, deacetylation degree, ash content, pH value, loss on drying and solubility testing. The functional and structural properties were also characterized using XRD and FT-IR respectively. All the characterization data were compared with standard chitosan and confirms the structure of chitosan. Hence, the current study proposed the efficient method of extracting high quality chitosan from shrimp and crab shell waste. This in turn encompasses in proficient crustacean waste management system and keeps the sea food industry associated environment clean.