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• Kumirska, J
• Czerwicka, M
• Kaczyński, Z
• Bychowska, A
• Brzozowski, K
• Thöming, J
• Stepnowski, P
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• Kumirska, J
• Czerwicka, M
• Kaczyński, Z
• Bychowska, A
• Brzozowski, K
• Thöming, J
• Stepnowski, P
• [+] on PubMed
• Kumirska, J
• Czerwicka, M
• Kaczyński, Z
• Bychowska, A
• Brzozowski, K
• Thöming, J
• Stepnowski, P

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Mar. Drugs 2010, 8(5), 1567-1636; doi:10.3390/md8051567

Review

Application of Spectroscopic Methods for Structural Analysis of Chitin and Chitosan

Jolanta Kumirska ^1,* , Małgorzata Czerwicka ¹ , Zbigniew Kaczyński ¹ , Anna Bychowska ¹ , Krzysztof Brzozowski ¹ , Jorg Thöming ²  and Piotr Stepnowski ¹

¹ Faculty of Chemistry, University of Gdansk, Sobieskiego 18/19, PL-80-952 Gdansk, Poland ² UFT-Centre for Environmental Research and Sustainable Technology, University of Bremen, Leobener Straße UFT, D-28359 Bremen, Germany

* Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.

Received: 8 March 2010; in revised form: 30 March 2010 / Accepted: 27 April 2010 / Published: 29 April 2010

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Marine Chitin and Chitosan)

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Abstract: Chitin, the second most important natural polymer in the world, and its N-deacetylated derivative chitosan, have been identified as versatile biopolymers for a broad range of applications in medicine, agriculture and the food industry. Two of the main reasons for this are firstly the unique chemical, physicochemical and biological properties of chitin and chitosan, and secondly the unlimited supply of raw materials for their production. These polymers exhibit widely differing physicochemical properties depending on the chitin source and the conditions of chitosan production. The presence of reactive functional groups as well as the polysaccharide nature of these biopolymers enables them to undergo diverse chemical modifications. A complete chemical and physicochemical characterization of chitin, chitosan and their derivatives is not possible without using spectroscopic techniques. This review focuses on the application of spectroscopic methods for the structural analysis of these compounds.

Keywords: chitin; chitosan; chemical modification; physicochemical parameters; structural analysis using spectroscopic techniques

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