Chitin and waste shrimp shells liquefaction and liquefied products/polyvinyl alcohol blend membranes

Feng-Yi Zheng; Ruisong Li; Jiadan Hu; Jie Zhang; Xudong Han; Xinrui Wang; Wen-Rong Xu; Yucang Zhang

doi:10.1016/j.carbpol.2018.10.079

Chitin and waste shrimp shells liquefaction and liquefied products/polyvinyl alcohol blend membranes

Carbohydr Polym. 2019 Feb 1:205:550-558. doi: 10.1016/j.carbpol.2018.10.079. Epub 2018 Oct 28.

Authors

Feng-Yi Zheng¹, Ruisong Li¹, Jiadan Hu¹, Jie Zhang¹, Xudong Han¹, Xinrui Wang¹, Wen-Rong Xu², Yucang Zhang³

Affiliations

¹ Key Laboratory of Advanced Materials of Tropical Island Resources of Ministry of Education, College of Materials and Chemical Engineering, Hainan University, Haikou 570228, China.
² Key Laboratory of Advanced Materials of Tropical Island Resources of Ministry of Education, College of Materials and Chemical Engineering, Hainan University, Haikou 570228, China. Electronic address: xuwr2016@hainu.edu.cn.
³ Key Laboratory of Advanced Materials of Tropical Island Resources of Ministry of Education, College of Materials and Chemical Engineering, Hainan University, Haikou 570228, China. Electronic address: yczhang@hainu.edu.cn.

PMID: 30446140
DOI: 10.1016/j.carbpol.2018.10.079

Abstract

Ball-milled chitin was liquefied with an optimal yield of 92% under sulfuric acid in diethylene glycol (DEG) at 160 °C for 120 min. The resulting liquid mixture was roughly separated into two portions: the real products of the reaction (liquefied ball-milled chitin, LBMC) and the remaining unreacted DEG. LBMC was further mingled with polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) to prepare LBMC/PVA blend membranes. To promote the direct utilization of shellfishery waste, raw shrimp shells were used to replace chitin for the liquefaction and membrane preparation operations. Liquefied ball-milled shrimp shells (LBMS) and the corresponding LBMS/PVA blend membranes were obtained. After adding LBMC or LBMS, the mechanical, thermal, water content and antibacterial performance of blend membranes were significantly improved compared to pure PVA membrane. Surprisingly, all the measured properties of LBMC/PVA and LBMS/PVA blend membranes were comparable, and even some properties of the latter were slightly superior than those of the former.

Keywords: Biomass; Blend membrane; Chitin; Liquefaction; Shrimp shells.