Development of a protocol to produce chitosan from the larval exuvia of Tenebrio molitor
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Abstract
Many of the polymers currently used in industry, research, and other fields are not easily biodegradable. These polymers most of the time are derived from petroleum, which has a significant environmental impact in their production. Chitosan serves as an alternative raw material with the potential of replacing various materials due to its properties. However, most of the industrial chitosan is extracted from waste generated by marine species processed for the food industry, making its extraction process non-scalable and dependent on the seasons when these species are caught. Additionally, industrial chitosan often has a high mineral content that is difficult to remove.
It is possible to obtain chitosan from insects in a more scalable and season-independent manner. In this study, a protocol was developed to obtain chitosan from the exuviae of larvae from the species Tenebrio molitor. The process involves chemical treatment to deproteinize and demineralize these waste materials to convert them into chitin. Subsequently, deacetylation is carried out to transform chitin into chitosan.
By processing the larval exuviae and making various modifications to the extraction protocol, an overall yield of 13.01% of the total mass of the raw material used was achieved. The transformation of larval exuviae into chitosan was confirmed through infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). Finally, the obtained product was confirmed to be chitosan through thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), and morphological differences were observed between the larval exuviae, the obtained chitosan, and commercial chitosan using scanning electron microscopy.
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