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Influence of the drying route on the depolymerization and properties of chitosan
Author(s) -
Arantes Mabel K.,
Kugelmeier Cristie L.,
CardozoFilho Lucio,
Monteiro Marcos R.,
Oliveira Clayton R.,
Alves Helton J.
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
polymer engineering and science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.503
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1548-2634
pISSN - 0032-3888
DOI - 10.1002/pen.24038
Subject(s) - chitosan , crystallinity , materials science , depolymerization , supercritical fluid , chemical engineering , degree of polymerization , polymer chemistry , polymerization , composite material , organic chemistry , polymer , chemistry , engineering
In this work, a chitosan sample with a high degree of deacetylation (DD >95%) obtained from freshwater shrimp shells was subjected to drying processes in an electric oven and by supercritical CO 2 . The results indicated that drying chitosan particles with supercritical CO 2 resulted in a very significant increase in specific surface area and pore volume, and also increased the material's crystallinity index. This drying route led to a more than 10‐fold reduction in viscosimetric molecular weight (from 35.3 to 3.0 kDa), indicating that the physical drying process caused the chitosan to depolymerize, which usually occurs by enzymatic and chemical methods, according to the literature. Low molecular weight chitosan is essential for some applications in the field of biomedicine (drug delivery for example); hence, drying via the CO 2 route can be considered a promising technique for the production of high value‐added materials with applications in this area. POLYM. ENG. SCI., 55:1969–1976, 2015. © 2014 Society of Plastics Engineers