Preparation of Self-Assembled Chitin Nanofibers and Nanocomposites Using Ionic Liquid

Preparation of Self-Assembled Chitin Nanofibers and Nanocomposites Using Ionic Liquid 

Graduate School of Science and Engineering, Kagoshima University, 1-21-40 Korimoto, Kagoshima 890-0065, Japan kadokawa eng.kagoshima-u.ac.jp 

Handbook of Sustainable Polymers Structure and Chemistry Edited by Vijay Kumar Thakur and Manju Kumari Thakur Copyright 2016 Pan Stanford Publishing Pte. Ltd. 

The polysaccharides are widely distributed in nature and have been regarded as structural materials and as suppliers of energy [1]. Because of better recent understanding of their possessing unique structures and properties, much attention has been paid to them as material sources. Of the many kinds of polysaccharides, chitin, a structural polymer in crustaceans, shellfish, and insects, is one of the most abundant natural polysaccharides in nature [2-6]. Despite its huge annual production and easy accessibility, chitin still remains an unutilized biomass resource primary because of its intractable bulk structure and insolubility in water and common organic solvents, and thus, only limited application has been paid to chitin, principally from its biological properties [7]. 

Since it was reported that l-butyl-3-methylimidazolium chloride of an ionic liquid dissolved cellulose in relatively high concentrations [26], various ionic liquids have been used as good solvents for derivatization and material processing of cellulose [27-30]. However, only the limited investigations have been reported regarding the dissolution of chitin with ionic liquids [31-35]. The authors found that an ionic liquid, l-allyl-3- 

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