Deacetylation of chitin uses 50% sodium hydroxide (NaOH) with temperature 60C for 12 hour to remove acetyl group from chitin to produce chitosan. From literature review, this method uses soxhlet apparatus and can process 7 g of chitin at a time. I would like to know if there is other method to run this process without using soxhlet and I want to run the method for large scale.
Hello,
I think you read a wrong paper in this case. Because no soxhelt apparatus is needed for chitin deacetylation. The method is quite simple:
1. prepare a 50% NaOH aqueous solution (1 lit)
2. Add to above solution about 40-50 gr chitin and raise temperature to about 90C
3. Continue the deacetylation reaction for 24 hours
4. filter the suspension mixture and wash the prepared chitosan with water untill you reach the neutral pH
you can you this method for any scale that you want.
But be careful, becuase 50% NaOH solution in high temperature can be very dangerous.
Dear Farzad,
Thank you for your reply. I found this method previously but I wasn't sure to apply it because it used water instead of phosphate buffer to adjust the pH. Would you mind to share the reference for the method?
For decalcification and deproteination process, can I use water too instead of phosphate buffer to adjust the pH?
you can find your answer in the following articles:
journals.sbmu.ac.ir/jps/article/download/1608/1445
www.icpjonline.com/documents/Vol1Issue9/06.pdf
Dear Farzad,
Thank you so much for sharing the articles. I really appreciate it.
- Badges
- Science topic