Chitin and chitosan are considerably versatile and promising biomaterials. The deacetylated chitin derivative chitosan is a useful and interesting bioactive polymer. Despite its biodegradability, it has many reactive amino side groups, which offer possibilities of chemical modifications, formation of a large variety of beneficial derivatives, which are commercially available or can be made available via graft reactions and ionic interactions. This study looks at the contemporary research in chitin and chitosan towards structure, properties, and applications in various industrial and biomedical fields.

A Review on Chitin and Chitosan Polymers: Structure, Chemistry, Solubility, Derivatives, and Applications

Although chitin is of the most available biopolymers on Earth its uses and applications are limited due to its low solubility. The deacetylation of chitin leads to chitosan. This biopolymer, composed of randomly distributed β-(1-4)-linked D-units, has better physicochemical properties due to the facts that it is possible to dissolve this biopolymer under acidic conditions, it can adopt several conformations or structures and it can be functionalized with a wide range of functional groups to modulate its superficial composition to a specific application. Chitosan is considered a highly biocompatible biopolymer due to its biodegradability, bioadhesivity and bioactivity in such a way this biopolymer displays a wide range of applications. Thus, chitosan is a promising biopolymer for numerous applications in the biomedical field (skin, bone, tissue engineering, artificial kidneys, nerves, livers, wound healing). This biopolymer is also employed to trap both organic compounds and dyes or for the selective separation of binary mixtures. In addition, chitosan can also be used as catalyst or can be used as starting molecule to obtain high added value products. Considering these premises, this review is focused on the structure and modification of chitosan as well as its uses and applications.

Chitosan: A Natural Biopolymer with a Wide and Varied Range of Applications.

Chitosan-wrapped multiwalled carbon nanotube as filler within PEBA thin film nanocomposite (TFN) membrane to improve dye removal

Enhanced proton conduction of chitosan membrane enabled by halloysite nanotubes bearing sulfonate polyelectrolyte brushes

Bentonite clay/poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) inorganic/organic hybrid nanocomposite membranes were prepared via solvent casting method. A series of PVA nanocomposite membranes have been prepared by varying the concentration of the bentonite clay. Nanoscale dispersion of bentonite clay affected the properties of PVA. PVA with 5 wt % clay showed better enhancement in the properties. Both X-ray diffration and transmission electron microscopy showed uniform dispersion and exfoliated structure of the bentonite in the PVA membranes. The effective separation of azeotropic composition of isopropanol (IPA) and water mixtures was also carried out by using these membranes. The flux and separation factor of the membranes were increased with 1 wt % clay loading and followed by a decrease. The intrinsic properties of the membranes have been calculated using membrane permeance and selectivity. The 1 wt % clay loaded membrane showed enhanced membrane permeance with a water permeance of 6500 gpu and a selectivity value of 46....

Effect of Bentonite Clay on the Mechanical, Thermal, and Pervaporation Performance of the Poly(vinyl alcohol) Nanocomposite Membranes

Novel approach for the development of pervaporation membranes using sodium alginate and chitosan-wrapped multiwalled carbon nanotubes for the dehydration of isopropanol

Development of novel grafted hybrid PVA membranes using glycidyltrimethylammonium chloride for pervaporation separation of water–isopropanol mixtures

Hard Keratin (HK) from goat horn discards was dissolved using Ionic Liquid (IL) called Tetrabutylammonium hydroxide (TBAH, 40% aqueous solution), particles of HK were extracted, evaluated for antioxidant potential and in vitro cell viability against A549 and HEK-293 cell lines. Different material characterization techniques viz. PFM, XRD, FESEM/EDAS, FTIR

B.K. Jeevan Kumar

Papers

Novel approach for the development of pervaporation membranes using sodium alginate and chitosan-wrapped multiwalled carbon nanotubes for the dehydration of isopropanol

Development of novel grafted hybrid PVA membranes using glycidyltrimethylammonium chloride for pervaporation separation of water–isopropanol mixtures

An assessment of the piezoelectric coefficient and the therapeutic potential of ionic liquid (il) dissolved hard keratin from goat horn discards