ABSTRACT
Chitin is a nontoxic, biodegradable polymer of high molecular weight. It is the most abundant second common polysaccharide found in nature after cellulose. Chitin is a ber, and in addition, it posesses exceptional chemical and biological qualities such as biocompatibility, biodegradability, nontoxicity, and adsorption properties that can be employed in various industrial and medical applications. Chitin is made up of a linear chain of acetylglucosamine groups (Figure 1.1). Chitosan is derived from chitin, abundantly occurring in shrimp’s shells. Chitosan is obtained by removing suf-cient acetyl groups (CH3-CO) for the molecule to be soluble in most diluted acids (Figure 1.2). This process, called deacetylation, releases amine groups (NH) and gives the chitosan a cationic characteristic. Chitosan is a linear polysaccharide composed of randomly distributed β-(1-4)-linked d-glucosamine and N-acetyl-d-glucosamine. This is especially interesting in an acidic environment in which the majority of polysaccharides are usually neutral or negatively charged (Peter 1995; Kurita 1998; Ravi Kumar 2000; Dutta et al. 2004; Rinaudo 2006; Pillai et al. 2009; Venkatesan and Kim 2010).
