Determination of chitosan content with ratio coefficient method and HPLC

Abstract

The determination of chitosan is a significant topic that has been growing in importance for a variety of fields. To quantify chitosan, various analytical methods can be used. When high performance liquid chromatographic (HPLC) is used for quantitative analysis of chitosan, the chitosan is mainly hydrolyzed into glucosamine salts, which are determined by HPLC. Average deacetylation degree (DD) has an effect on acid hydrolysis of chitosan. In this paper, chitosan with different average DDs was hydrolyzed to observe its effect on the determination of chitosan content, and that the study of combining acid hydrolysis rates of chitosan (α) with different average DDs and chitin (β) standard to form ratio coefficients (γ) to quantify chitosan was designed. Then, the table about γ values within certain average DD ranges of chitosan was obtained. By using γ and α, the actual content of chitosan could be obtained simply and accurately.

Keywords: Average deacetylation degree (DD); Determination of chitosan content; HPLC; Hydrolysis rate; Ratio coefficient.