Fraunhofer Researchers Develop High-Purity Chitosan Coatings from Waste Materials
The processing of shellfish in the fishing industry, insect protein production, and mushroom cultivation give rise to waste materials containing high amounts of chitin. The Fraunhofer Institute for Interfacial Engineering and Biotechnology IGB has developed a chitin processing chain in order to generate added value from these waste sources. These technologies enable the production of high-purity chitosan, which can be used in various fields including sustainable coatings. Transparent films produced from chitosan are suitable for use as biodegradable single-use packaging and have the potential to replace petroleum-based plastics.
Balıkçılık sektöründe kabukluların işlenmesi, böcek proteini üretimi ve mantar yetiştiriciliği, yüksek miktarda kitin içeren atıkların oluşmasına neden oluyor. Fraunhofer Institute for Interfacial Engineering and Biotechnology IGB, bu atık kaynaklarından katma değer üretmek amacıyla bir kitin işleme proses zinciri geliştirdi. Bu teknolojiler, sürdürülebilir kaplamalar da dahil olmak üzere çeşitli alanlarda kullanılabilen yüksek saflıkta kitosan üretimine olanak sağlıyor. Kitosandan üretilen şeffaf filmler, biyobozunur tek kullanımlık ambalajlar olarak kullanılmaya uygun olup petrol bazlı plastiklerin yerini alma potansiyeli taşıyor.
The processing of shellfish in the fishing industry, insect protein production, and mushroom cultivation give rise to waste materials containing high amounts of chitin. The Fraunhofer Institute for Interfacial Engineering and Biotechnology IGB has developed a chitin processing chain in order to generate added value from these waste sources. These technologies enable the production of high-purity chitosan, which can be used in various fields including sustainable coatings. Transparent films produced from chitosan are suitable for use as biodegradable single-use packaging and have the potential to replace petroleum-based plastics.
The biopolymer chitin is produced mainly as a structural material by crustaceans, insects, and fungi, and is known as the second most widespread biopolymer in the world after plant-based cellulose. Due to the nitrogen it contains, chitin is already used in agriculture as a fertilizer and soil conditioner, or for chitosan production. However, commercial use to date has remained largely limited to chitin obtained from crab shells. Nevertheless, the food industry and biotechnology sectors around the world generate hundreds of thousands of tons of additional chitin-containing waste, such as insect exoskeletons from insect protein production, mycelium residues from fungal fermentation, and residues from mushroom cultivation.
Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Interfacial Engineering and Biotechnology IGB have succeeded in using insect exoskeletons and mycelium-containing residues obtained from fungal fermentation as chitin sources for chitosan production. To this end, the institute has established a chitin processing chain in which residue and waste streams are processed according to a biorefinery principle and converted into valuable materials.
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