ABSTRACT
Keywords: Chitosan, hydrogel, adsorption, copper.
1 INTRODUCTION
Chitosan, poly(1-4)-D-glucosamine, is a product of chitin deacetylation. One of the important properties of chitosan is its high absorption of metal ions, cholesterol, proteins and tumour cells. These properties result mainly from the presence of reactive NH2 and OH groups in molecules. Researches described in literature show complex-forming abilities of chitosan, mainly for transition metal ions (Onsen & Skaugrud 1990, Kamin´ski & Modrzejewska 1997, 1999, Roberts 1997, Minamisawa et al. 1999, Ngah & Liang 1999, Becker et al. 2000, Bhatia & Ravi 2000, Krajewska 2001, Ly et al. 2003, Ngah et al. 2005, Chang et al. 2006, Kurita 2006, Vieira 2006, Baran et al. 2007, Campos et al. 2007, Septhum et al. 2007, Baroni et al. 2008, Chen et al. 2008, Rangel-Mendez et al. 2009).
