Highly Fibrous and Porous Raw Material Shaped Chitin Isolated from Oniscus sp. (Crustacea)

Chitin was isolated from a crustacean by keeping the original body shape for the first time. The isolation method followed in this study was simple and time and energy saving unlike the labor-intensive classical methods. Chitin samples preserving the original shape were isolated from Isopoda (Oniscus sp.) successfully in a total of 20 min including filtration time. FT-IR, XRD and TGA analysis and chitinase digestion test demonstrated that the chitin was pure, low crystalline (Crystalline index: 51 %) and had low thermal stability (maximum degradation temperature: 328.8 °C). SEM analysis revealed the highly fibrous structure of chitin. The chitin content of the whole body was found significantly higher (29.6 ± 4.2 %) than the earlier reports. Interaction of chitin isolates with Bovine Serum Albumin protein were studied at different pH. It was concluded that this three dimensional raw material shaped chitin can be effectively used in any adsorption studies due to 1) highly fibrous and porous nature, 2) low crystallinity and 3) low thermal stability. And also this biodegradable and biocompatible biopolymer can be suggested as a carrier matrix in further studies thanks to its three dimensional shape.