Abstract:
Chitosan is tlie deacetylation's product of chitin which are found on the outer
skin of Crustacea species such as shrimps and crabs. In recent years microwave
chemistry has received much attention as it can speed up the reaction rate by orders
of magnitude over conventional heating. In spite of it, the use of microwave
irradiation for carrying out chemical reactions for biotechnological processes is few.
Microwave irradiation has been used for the chemical modification of chitosan.
Chitosan is synthesized by deacetylating chitin with NaOH solution under
microwave irradiation. The process describes a rapid synthesis procedure in
comparison to conventional methods. The microwave-synthesized chitosan was
characterized by Ninhydrin test, Fourier transform-infrared spectroscopy and X-ray
diffraction measurements.
