IL versus DES: Impact on chitin pretreatment to afford high quality and highly functionalizable chitosan

Chitin is mainly extracted from crustaceans, but this resource seasonally dependent and can represent a major drawback to satisfy the traceability criterion for high valuable applications. Insect resources are alternatives due their lower mineral content. However, deacetylation of chitin into chitosan still an expensive process. Therefore, we herein compare impact both DES/IL-pretreatments on efficiency chemical carried out over two insect sources (Bombyx eri, BE Hermetia illucens, HI) shrimp shells (S). The results showed that chitosans obtained IL-pretreated chitins larva, present acetylation degrees (13–17%) than DES-pretreated samples (18–27%). A selective N-acylation reaction with oleic acid has also been performed purest most deacetylated leading substitution (up 27%). overall approach validates proper source processing methodology achieve quality highly functionalizable chitosan.