Chitin Deacetylation Shells of Portunus pelagicus L. Using Microwave Irradiation

Abstract

Natural polymers such as chitosan are one of the interesting things to study or are widely used as industrial raw materials such as adsorbents, membranes, and edible films. Portunus pelagicus L. is one of the sources of chitosan from nature. The shell of Portunus pelagicus L. in Bangka Island are waste from the untapped food industry. Even though this shell can have high values because there are chitin and chitosan. Good chitosan has a high degree of deacetylation. So the research purpose of this study is to see the effect deacetylation process using a microwave. The microwave used was MARS 6 - Microwave Accelerated Reaction System (CEM) using an EasyPrep Plus vessel. Various in Microwave deacetylation process is the time at 1200 W and 100°C. The method for analyzing the structure and degree of deacetylation (DD) in this study uses Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy. The results showed that deacetylation using conventional methods for 120 minutes at a temperature 100°C had DD 76.67% while deacetylation using microwave for 40 minutes at a temperature of 100°C had a DD 77.89%. Microwave deacetylation is three times faster than conventional methods.