Miguel Ángel Ramírez¹, Patricia González², Juan Reinerio Fagundo², Margaret Suarez³, Clara Melian³, Tania Rodríguez¹, Carlos Peniche^4*

Journal of Renewable Materials, Vol.5, No.1, pp. 30-37, 2017, DOI:10.7569/JRM.2016.634121

Abstract The inorganic components of crustacean shells are usually removed using HCl solutions. This provokes undesirable modifications in the extracted chitin. In the present procedure, deproteinized lobster shells were demineralized with CO2 and a cationic resin (cationite). The resulting chitin (CHI-CO2) is compared in terms of degree of acetylation (DA), crystallinity index (CrI) and thermal stability with chitins obtained by demineralization procedures with HCl (CHI-HCl) and ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (CHI-EDTA). The ash content of chitins demineralized with CO2 was similar to that of chitins prepared using HCl or EDTA. However, the resultant DA and CrI of CHI-HCl More >

Miguel Ángel Ramírez¹, Luis Alfonso^†, Patricia González², Juan Reinerio Fagundo², Margaret Suarez³, Clara Melian³, Tania Rodríguez¹, Carlos Peniche^4,*

Journal of Renewable Materials, Vol.3, No.1, pp. 73-80, 2015, DOI:10.7569/JRM.2014.634116

Abstract The demineralization kinetics of deproteinized lobster shells using CO₂ were studied. Demineralization reaction proceeds until the concentration of Ca⁺² in solution reaches an equilibrium value. The introduction of a cation exchange resin (cationite), in an open system for CO₂ , allows replacement of the solution Ca²⁺ ions by Na⁺ ions, whereby the equilibrium shifts and an effective dissolution of the exoskeletons’ calcite is achieved. The mathematical relationships between the conductivity of the solution and the concentrations of major ions, the rate constants and kinetic parameters of the reaction in the absence and presence of the resin were obtained. More >