Synthesis of Water-Soluble Chitosan From Squid Pens Waste for Capsule Shell Materials

Water-Soluble Chitosan (WSC) has been sucessfuly synthesized from squid pens waste. The synthesis of chitosan from chitin was carried out by optimization of deacetylation temperature and time. Chitin was obtained from squid pens waste by demineralization and deproteinization process. HCl 7% was used for demineralization and NaOH 10% at 60°C was applied for deproteinization process. Deacetylation reaction was carried out at varied temperatures i.e., 60°C, 70°C, 80°C, 90°C and 100°C in NaOH 50% solution for 10 hours. Deacetylation reaction time were varied for 2 hours, 4 hours, 6 hours, 8 hours, and 10 hours. The crude chitosan obtained then reacted with H2O2 30% to depolymerize. The synthesis product obtained then characterized by FTIR. The result of squid chitin yield was 33.9%. The optimum temperature and time of chitosan deacetylation process were 90°C for 8 hours as indicated by the value of deacetylation degree (DD) that equal to 83.94% at optimum temperature and 82.22% at optimum reaction time. The percentage of WSC yield at optimum temperature (90°C) and optimum time (8 hours) were 27.59% and 23.16%, respectively. WSC solubility test was done in water and HCl 0,1N. The solubility of 2.8325 mg/mL and 0.8125 mg/mL were obtained in acid medium and water medium, respectively.