REVIEW ON SYNTHESIS, CHARACTERISATION AND BIOACTIVITY OF CHITOSAN

One of the most widespread biopolymer in nature, after cellulose, is chitin. It can be extracted from sources like crustaceans, microorganisms and insects. However, the main commercial sources of chitin are shells of crustaceans such as prawns, crabs, lobsters and krill that are supplied in large quantities by the shellfish processing industries. Extraction of chitin can be done by two processes, chemical and biological. Chemical method requires acids and bases like sodium hydroxide, hydrochloric acid and acetic acid for deproteination, demineralisation and decolourisation processes respectively and microbial method includes the use of various micro-organisms for the similar steps as chemical process. The chitin obtained is further processed by deacetylation method using sodium hydroxide to convert into chitosan, another product having high industrial significance which possesses valuable properties like biocompatibility, biodegradability, antibacterial nature, film forming and fibre forming ability promoting its use in a variety of interesting applications. Applications of chitosan are found in industries such as textiles, medicine, food, agriculture, paper, cosmetics and wastewater treatment. The paper reviews the methods of synthesis, characterisation of chitosan with analytical methods like FTIR, SEM, NMR etc. and bioactivity determination of Chitosan as anti-microbial, anti-blood coagulant etc. properties