Abstract
This study aims to assess the possibility of extracting chitosan extracted from shrimp collected from the Libyan coast, to study some of its physiochemical properties, and to classify it compared to those extracted from imported shrimp available in the Libyan market in Tripoli. The physical and chemical properties of chitosan were studied including fat-binding capacity (FBC), water-binding capacity (WBC), throughput, solubility, moisture content, ash, protein, lipid, and degree of deacetylation of chitosan. The results showed that the moisture content was 28.025% in the untreated shrimp shells. The chitin sample contained 10.166% of moisture, compared to 2.677% only in the chitosan sample. Fresh local shrimp shells contained 4.70% ash, whereas the ash content in the imported sample was 53.62%. The extracted chitin and chitosan samples recorded 0.45% and 2.05% ash content, respectively. Local shrimp shells contained 28% of protein. A 4.16% protein content was found in chitin extract from locally collected shrimp shells, against 0.098% in extracts from imported shrimp shells. Moreover, local shrimp shell samples contained 0.668% of fat, against 5.86% fat content in imported samples. Chitin and chitosan extracted from local shrimp shells contained 0.74% and 2.50% fat, respectively. Chitosan extracted from imported shrimp shells had a fat content of 7.307%. Fresh shrimp yielded 14.04% of chitosan, with a 0.329% the chitosan extracts from the local shrimp shells, compared to 8.5% extracts from the imported shrimp shells. A deacetylation score of 9.944 was found in chitosan extracted from both local and imported chimpanzees. The solubility of chitosan extracted from domestic shrimp shells was 0.329%, against an 8.5% solubility of chitosan extracted from imported shells. The solubility of locally extracted chitosan is, therefore, comparatively weaker. The water-binding capacity (WBC) of chitosan extracted from local and imported shrimp shells were found to be 485.6% and 483.2%, respectively. The ability of chitosan extracted from local shrimp shells showed a fat binding capacity (FBC) of 611% against a capacity of 764% of imported chitosan. Although this study succeeded in extracting chitin and chitosan from local and imported shrimp shells using chemical treatment, chitosan production was significantly poor, compared to previous studies.