Surimi wash water treatment by chitosan-alginate complexes

2. LITERATURE REVIEW
Chitin and its derivative chitosan have applications in diverse fields ranging
from waste management and agriculture to biomedical and biotechnology. Chitin
was first identified in 1811 by French Professor Henri Braconnot while
investigating mushrooms (Agaricus volvacous and others) and called it fungine
(Muzzarelli, 1977). The same compound was detected in insects by Odier who
called it chili,., from the Greek chiton meaning tunic or envelope and established
for the first time a relationship between the insect cuticle and plant tissue
(Muzzarelli, 1977; Lower, 1984; Brine, 1984). In 1859, C. Rouget discovered
modified chitin, later known as chitosan, when he boiled chitin in concentrated
KOH solution making it soluble in organic acid. Ladderhose found that chitin is
composed of glucosamine which was confirmed by E. Gilson (Muzzarelli, 1977).
2.1. Physicochemical properties
Chitin is a linear chain of the polysaccharide (1-4)-linked 2-acetamido-2-
deoxy-j3-D-glucopyranose. As shown in Figure 1, the chemical structure of chitin is
similar to that of cellulose and shares with it the biological function of being a
structural polymer. Both are glucose polymers with the two molecules differing
only in the second ring position. In chitin, the -OH group at this position is replaced
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