Chitin and chitosan: Properties and applications

TL;DR: The state of water in non-crosslinked and ionically crosslinked Ch membranes containing different amount of water was investigated by low temperature differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) measurements and DSC analysis confirmed presence of freezing and non-freezing water in the membranes.

TL;DR: In this article, a comprehensive categorization of these composite membranes based on their structure and performance of these membranes in eliminating various kinds of contaminants from effluents and their strength and weakness points is discussed.

TL;DR: A new method was developed to determine glucosamine (GlcN) and N-acetyl GlcNAc in materials containing chitin and chitosan, such as fungal cell walls, using biomass of three strains of zygomycetes, Rhizopus oryzae, Mucor indicus, and Rhizomucor pusillus, which showed recovery of 90.7-92.4% of chitan from commercial preparations.

TL;DR: The effects of the production process on the morphology and properties of ChNFs and ChNCs produced from the same source of chitin, and in vitro cytotoxicity assays demonstrated that both nanomaterials were non-toxic.

TL;DR: Department of Pharmaceutics, National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research (NIPER), Sector 67, S. S. Nagar, Punjab-160 062, India, Institute of Biochemistry, Faculty of Medicine, Polytechnic University, Via Ranieri 67, IT-60100 Ancona, Italy, and Department of Medicinal Chemistry & Natural Products,The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, School of Pharmacy-Faculty of medicine, Jerusalem 91120, Israel.

TL;DR: A review of the literature on enzymes immobilized on chitin- and chitosan-based materials, covering the last decade, is presented in this paper, where one hundred fifty-eight papers on 63 immobilized enzymes for multiplicity of applications ranging from wine, sugar and fish industry, through organic compounds removal from wastewaters to sophisticated biosensors for both in situ measurements of environmental pollutants and metabolite control in artificial organs, are reviewed.

TL;DR: This study reports for the first time the use of polymer/polyol salt aqueous solutions as gelling systems, suggesting the discovery of a prototype for a new family of thermosetting gels highly compatible with biological compounds.

TL;DR: The use of infrared spectroscopy for characterization of the composition of chitin and chitosan covering the entire range of degree of acetylation (DA) and a wide variety of raw materials is examined further in this article.