I have done the extraction of chitosan from the shells of the shrimps, in the last step the deacytilization I used NaOH 50%, I have recovered the mass of chitosan ,filtered it and when I added the distilled water to start washing the mass of chitosan is completely dissolved in the water there is no more product! explanations please ! Because from what I know that chitosan is only soluble in acids
I am not really an expert but from the added files it appears that chitosan may become water-soluble already at pH 6.5. I am not sure but solubility may increase at higher degree of deacetylation (DD). So I recommend (a) to check the pH of your washing fluid, and (b) to decrease your degree of deacetylation somewhat. You can also try to recover the dissolved chitosan by adding some alkali to the solution.
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