Comparative Analysis of Chitin and Chitosan from Marine and Freshwater Prawns

Priyanka Thounaojam, Mujeeb Abdul Jaleel Shaikh

Abstract: Worldwide nonedible shells of prawns, which comprises near about half the weight of prawns are adding lot of environmental pollution. Considering the weight of waste, present investigation was focused to convert the raw shells of all major marine P. monoceros, P. indicus, P. monodon and freshwater M. rosenbergii prawns species into usable chitin and chitosan. Concentration of both the chitin and chitosan in all the four species is done to determine the maximum yielding species. All the experimental species shell waste were subjected to methodology of deproteinization, demineralization, deacetylation for extraction and determination of concentrations of chitin and chitosan. The results indicated chitin yield was highest 3.6% for P. monoceros and Chitosan yield was found to be highest in M. rosenbergii having 34.93%. These findings helps in determining species specific extraction and commercial viability of chitin and chitosan as these are of great importance owing to their relatively high percentage of nitrogen compared to synthetically substituted cellulose. Chitosan have been identified as versatile biopolymer of natural origin for food addictive and preservative due to their non ?toxicity, antioxidant activities and antimicrobial action.

Keywords: Chitin, Chitosan, prawns, shell waste