Chitin and Chitosan Based Blends, Composites and Nanocomposites
Nature is gifted with several nanomaterials which could be obtained from different animal and plant sources. Cellulose, chitin and starch are abundant, natural, renewable and biodegradable polymers. By intelligent processing techniques they could be used
- PDF / 1,997,640 Bytes
- 65 Pages / 439.37 x 666.142 pts Page_size
- 82 Downloads / 212 Views
Chitin and Chitosan Based Blends, Composites and Nanocomposites Mohammad Zuber, Khalid Mahmood Zia and Mehdi Barikani
Abstract Nature is gifted with several nanomaterials which could be obtained from different animal and plant sources. Cellulose, chitin and starch are abundant, natural, renewable and biodegradable polymers. By intelligent processing techniques they could be used as classical nano reinforcing fillers in polymers i.e., composites. They are often called whiskers.
3.1 Introduction Nature is gifted with several nanomaterials which could be obtained from different animal and plant sources. Cellulose, chitin and starch are abundant, natural, renewable and biodegradable polymers. By intelligent processing techniques they could be used as classical nano reinforcing fillers in polymers i.e., composites. They are often called whiskers. These whiskers are almost defect free and as a result, their properties are comparable to perfect crystals. The excellent reinforcing properties of these natural whiskers stem from their chemical nature and hierarchical structure. During the past decade, many studies have been devoted to mimic biocomposites by blending natural whiskers from waste and biomass sources with various polymer matrices. The presence of crystalline fibrils in the chitinous integuments has been elucidated several decades ago [1–3]. This chapter intends to
M. Zuber (&) K. M. Zia Department of Applied Chemistry, Government College University, Faisalabad 38000, Pakistan e-mail: [email protected] M. Barikani Department of Polyurethane, Iran Polymer and Petrochemical Institute, Tehran, Iran
S. Thomas et al. (eds.), Advances in Natural Polymers, Advanced Structured Materials 18, DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-20940-6_3, Ó Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013
55
56
M. Zuber et al.
Fig. 3.1 Chemical structure of chitin and deacetylated chitin (chitosan)
focus on the chitin and chitosan based blends, composites and nanocomposites. During the last few years, however, some indications appeared in the literature about the preparation of composites made of chitin whiskers dispersed into natural and artificial polymers. It is believed that this subject represents at this time an opportunity for a better exploitation of chitin, as well as a challenge in view of certain technical difficulties. Chitin is a naturally occurring polysaccharide and is recognized by consisting of 2-acetamido-2-deoxy- D-glucose via a b (1–4) linkage (Fig. 3.1). As the second most abundant biopolymer after cellulose, chitin occurs in enormous number of living organisms such as shrimps, crabs, tortoise, and insects, [4] and can also be synthesized by a nonbiosynthetic pathway through chitinase-catalyzed polymerization of a chitobiose oxazoline derivative [5–7]. Chitosan, as the most important derivative of chitin, can be prepared by its chemical modification. Chitin and chitosan have many excellent properties including biocompatibility, biodegradability, non-toxicity, absorption properties, etc., and thus they can be widely used in
Data Loading...
