title: The quick extraction of chitin from an epizoic crustacean species (Chelonibia patula).
abstract: Chitin was isolated from the shells of Chelonibia patula (barnacle, Crustacea), which lives on blue crab epizoically, following a 10-min demineralisation process through HCl and a 20-min deproteinisation process through NaOH. Due to the low-crystalline structure, and mineral-rich and low-protein content of the shells, chitin isolation was convenient. It was observed that the shell structure of C. patula contains 3.11% chitin per its dry weight. Following characterisation of the isolated chitin by using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, thermogravimetric analysis, X-ray diffractometry, elemental analysis and scanning electron microscopy, it was determined that there was close similarity with the α-chitin isolated from crabs, shrimps and insects in various studies. It was observed that chitin was composed of nanofibres with a width of 10-20 nm. It was concluded that this was an economically advantageous chitin resource compared with crustaceans such as shrimp, crayfish and crab, because it is possible to isolate chitin in a significantly shorter time.
authors.affiliation: a Department of Biotechnology and Molecular Biology , Faculty of Science and Letters, Aksaray University , 68100 Aksaray , Turkey.
authors.forename: Murat
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kaya
authors.forename: Muhsin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Karaarslan
authors.forename: Talat
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Baran
authors.forename: Esra
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Can
authors.forename: Gulcin
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Ekemen
authors.forename: Betul
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Bitim
authors.forename: Fatih
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Duman
mesh_terms: D060105:Animal Shells / Q000737:chemistry; D000818:Animals; D003386:Brachyura; D002686:Chitin / Q000737:chemistry / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D008855:Microscopy, Electron, Scanning; D017550:Spectroscopy, Fourier Transform Infrared; D013559:Symbiosis; D001468:Thoracica / Q000737:chemistry*
chemical_list: D002686:Chitin
keywords: barnacle; chitin; isolation; nanofibre; thermal properties