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    Electrochemical approach for isolation of chitin from the skeleton of the black coral cirrhipathes sp. (Antipatharia)
    (Basel : MDPI, 2020) Nowacki, Krzysztof; Stępniak, Izabela; Langer, Enrico; Tsurkan, Mikhail; Wysokowski, Marcin; Petrenko, Iaroslav; Khrunyk, Yuliya; Fursov, Andriy; Bo, Marzia; Bavestrello, Giorgio; Joseph, Yvonne; Ehrlich, Hermann
    The development of novel and effective methods for the isolation of chitin, which remains one of the fundamental aminopolysaccharides within skeletal structures of diverse marine invertebrates, is still relevant. In contrast to numerous studies on chitin extraction from crustaceans, mollusks and sponges, there are only a few reports concerning its isolation from corals, and especially black corals (Antipatharia). In this work, we report the stepwise isolation and identification of chitin from Cirrhipathes sp. (Antipatharia, Antipathidae) for the first time. The proposed method, aiming at the extraction of the chitinous scaffold from the skeleton of black coral species, combined a well-known chemical treatment with in situ electrolysis, using a concentrated Na2SO4 aqueous solution as the electrolyte. This novel method allows the isolation of a-chitin in the form of a microporous membrane-like material. Moreover, the extracted chitinous scaffold, with a well-preserved, unique pore distribution, has been extracted in an astoundingly short time (12 h) compared to the earlier reported attempts at chitin isolation from Antipatharia corals. © 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
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    A Complementary and Revised View on the N-Acylation of Chitosan with Hexanoyl Chloride
    (Basel : MDPI, 2021) Reis, Berthold; Gerlach, Niklas; Steinbach, Christine; Haro Carrasco, Karina; Oelmann, Marina; Schwarz, Simona; Müller, Martin; Schwarz, Dana
    The modification of the biobased polymer chitosan is a broad and widely studied field. Herein, an insight into the hydrophobization of low-molecular-weight chitosan by substitution of amino functionalities with hexanoyl chloride is reported. Thereby, the influence of the pH of the reaction media was investigated. Further, methods for the determination of the degree of substitution based on 1H-NMR, FTIR, and potentiometric titration were compared and discussed regarding their accuracy and precision. 1H-NMR was the most accurate method, while FTIR and the potentiometric titration, though precise and reproducible, underlie the influence of complete protonation and solubility issues. Additionally, the impact of the pH variation during the synthesis on the properties of the samples was investigated by Cd2+ sorption experiments. The adjusted pH values during the synthesis and, therefore, the obtained degrees of substitution possessed a strong impact on the adsorption properties of the final material.