Enzymatic Modification of Native Chitin and Conversion to Specialty Chemical Products.

ABSTRACT: : Chitin is one of the most abundant biomolecules on earth, occurring in crustacean shells and cell walls of fungi. While the polysaccharide is threatening to pollute coastal ecosystems in the form of accumulating shell-waste, it has the potential to be converted into highly profitable derivatives with applications in medicine, biotechnology, and wastewater treatment, among others. Traditionally this is still mostly done by the employment of aggressive chemicals, yielding low quality while producing toxic by-products. In the last decades, the enzymatic conversion of chitin has been on the rise, albeit still not on the same level of cost-effectiveness compared to the traditional methods due to its multi-step character. Another severe drawback of the biotechnological approach is the highly o

SUBMITTER: Arnold ND 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7073968 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature