Β-CHITIN AND CHITOSAN FROM WASTE SHELLS OF EDIBLE MOLLUSKS AS A FUNCTIONAL INGREDIENT (Article)

Abstract

The marine food-processing industries were producing large quantities of shell wastesas a discard. Currently, this waste material was underutilized and leads to the land-fill as a significant environmental issue. The outer shells or exoskeletons of mollusksserve as the best source of chitin. Three different allomorphs of chitin (γ, β, and γ) wereextracted from different species of crustaceans, mollusks, and fungi. β-Allomorphspredominantly exist in the shells of mollusks. β-Chitin and its deacetylated productchitosan has been utilized for its special characteristic features, including biocom-patibility, environmental friendly, and nontoxic properties. The extraction of β-chitinand chitosan from the mollusk shell waste were evaluated in this work. Hence, thisreview aims to explore edible mollusk shell waste sources and its suitable extractiontechniques, characterizations, and functional properties of mollusk-based β-chitin andchitosan. Further, the genetic pathway of synthesizing mollusk chitin was discussed.The entire life cycle assessment with techno-economic aspects were extrapolated tostudy the bottlenecks and tangible solution for the industrial upscaling of obtainingβ-chitin and chitosan from the edible mollusk shell waste have been reviewed herein.