Bat guano as new and attractive chitin and chitosan source

Abstract

Introduction: Chitin is a biopolymer that forms the exoskeleton of arthropods, and is found in the cell walls of fungi. It has a wide range of uses in fields such as cosmetics, pharmacy, medicine, bioengineering, agriculture, textiles and environmental engineering based upon its nontoxic, ecofriendly, biocompability and biodegradability characteristics. Commercially, chitin is obtained from processing the outer skeleton of Crustacea such as shrimp, crab, prawn and crayfish after they have been consumed as food. The study aims to examine the nature of bat guano and to determine if it is a practical source of chitin, which has not been done previously.Results: In this study, the chitin content of dry bat guano samples was found to be 28%. The bat guano, which was collected from Karacamal Cave, came from the bat species Rhinolophus hipposideros. The chitosan yield of this chitin was 79%. The chitin produced from the bat guano was determined to be in the alpha form according to Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) results. The crystallinity of the chitin and chitosan samples was calculated as 85.49 and 58.51% respectively by X-ray crystallography (XRD) experiments. According to scanning electron microscope (SEM) micrographs, the chitin and chitosan structures were shaped like nanofibers. The thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) results showed that both chitin and chitosan had two step weight losses, which are characteristic of these materials. The nitrogen content of the chitin and chitosan was 6.47 and 7.3% respectively according to the elemental analysis results. Conclusions:In this research, it has been observed that bat guano can be considered to be an alternative source of chitin and chitosan to crab, shrimp, crayfish and krill.

Chitin and chitosan from Brazilian Atlantic Coast: Isolation, characterization and antibacterial activity

“…The isolated chitosan had two different beaks appeared in DTG curve. The first peak appeared at 50-90 • C, which was related to the evaporation of residual of water [12]. The second decomposition peak was appeared at 290 • C, may be related to decomposition of glucosamine and residual acetyl glucosamine in chitosan chain [79].…”

“…Chitin is one of the most abundant amino polysaccharides found Q3 in nature next to cellulose; it has a wide variety of sources as exoskeleton of crustacean (crab, shrimp and crawfish, Oniscus asellus) [1][2][3][4], insect cuticles (Melolontha melolontha) [3], Orthoptera species [5,6], wings of cockroach [7], grasshopper species [8], medicinal fungus [9], larvae and adult Colorado potato beetle [10], aquatic invertebrates [11], bat guano [12], resting eggs of Daphnia longispina [13], spider species [14], Daphnia magna resting eggs [15], and cell wall of fungi and in the green algae. The chemical structure of chitin (C 8 H 13 O 5 N) n is similar to cellulose, having one hydroxyl group on each monomer substituted with an acetyl amine groups.…”

ChiBio: An Integrated Bio-refinery for Processing Chitin-Rich Bio-waste to Specialty Chemicals

“…Both bacteria were cultivated separately and used in combination for fermentation. L. lactis alone reached a DP of 66% and DM 79%, while T. turnerae alone reached 78% DP and 23% DM [95]. The co-fermentation of L. paracasei ssp.…”

Bat guano as new and attractive chitin and chitosan source

“…The first of these types has the outside surface formed form nanofibers and nanopores [22,40,43]. The second has the surface with only nanofibers, without nanopores [11,26,44]. The third one has the surface with both nanofibers and nanopores together [29,39].…”