ABSTRACT
The adverse environmental impact of sheries has been a concern for regulatory agencies all over the world, prompting them to adopt measures and regulations with a view to containing these problems. These measures relate to treating efuents from aquaculture farms, dumping seafood processing discards, and shing craft and gear hygiene, among others. Efforts to address environmental issues during the past few decades have led to the recognition that sh seafood offal can be a valuable resource, and its proper bioprocessing could yield industrially important products for a variety of applications. Some of these products include animal feed, biogas, versatile polysaccharides, pigments, collagen and gelatin, and enzymes. Success in commercial-scale recovery of at least a few of these compounds can be economically benecial besides offering solutions to seafood-related environmental pollution.1-6
Seafood processing plants in several countries process shrimp essentially for export purposes. Aquaculture of shrimp is also widespread in many developing countries. These operations generate about 35 to 45% by weight of whole shrimp as waste. Utilization of these wastes for the production of polysaccharides such as chitin and its deacetylated form, chitosan, as well as other derivatives, can be of major economic signicance.7-14 Chitin and its derivative chitosan are known for their biocompatibility, biodegradability, and nontoxicity, in addition to their antimicrobial, metal chelating, and gel-forming properties. They also offer the potential of being chemically modied to produce diverse functionally active derivatives. These polysaccharides are likely to be increasingly exploited in coming years for a variety of applications in the areas of food, medicines, cosmetics, textiles, and paper, among others.
