Advances in Chitin/Chitosan Characterization and Applications

Dear Colleagues,

Chitin is an aminopolysaccharide, widely-abundant from different sources of biomass in the biosphere (e.g., crustacean and insect exosqueleton, fungus, fish scales). Chitosan is derived from chitin, is water soluble, and finds multiple applications, especially in the biomedical and pharmaceutic domains. One of the major issues remains the complete and correct characterization of the samples using distribution of the acetyl groups along the chains, distribution of the molecular weights, and choice of the convenient solvent for dissolution.

Another important point is the preparation of well-defined derivatives by chemical methods allowing a random distribution of the substituents (or grafted chains) along the chains to be able to get reproducible polymers with reproducible properties for specific applications.

Many products based on chitin/chitosan are biomaterials that comprise well-defined chitin and chitosan samples: films, fibers, nanoparticles, composite materials (involving fibers, solid particles, etc.), hydrogels, polymeric complexes, nanoporous scaffolds, etc. The applications encompass scaffold biomaterials (in tissue engineering, or regenerative medicine), non-viral gene delivery systems, nano- and micro-particles for biologics transmucosal delivery, among other. In this Special Issue, chemical and enzymatic modifications of oligo- and polymers will also be considered.

Prof. Dr. Marguerite Rinaudo
Prof. Dr. Francisco M. Goycoolea
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Polymers is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.