ABSTRACT
According to some marine biologist [1] chitin in all its forms, in a vast number of different species in the marine and terrestrial environment, competes with cellulose in being the most abundant organic substance on our planet. As a raw material for commercial exploitation it is, however, almost invisible compared to cellulose from which commercial products are produced in the scale of 100-200 million metric tons per year compared to less than 10,000 metric tons for chitin [2]. There could be several reasons for this enormous difference: availability of sources, lack of proper harvesting techniques and logistics, and raw material separated geographically from the marked and the developing technologies. Or it could be some inherent problems with the functionality of chitinous products compared to cellulose due to their chemical differences, cellulose being very inert and chitosan, as shall be seen, very reactive and an active ingredient inmany applications.
