Extraction and Characterization of Chitin from the Beetle Holotrichia parallela Motschulsky

Abstract

Insect chitin was isolated from adult Holotrichia parallela by treatment with 1 M HCl and 1 M NaOH, following by 1% potassium permanganate solution for decolorization. The yield of chitin from this species is 15%. This insect chitin was compared with the commercial α-chitin from shrimp, by infrared spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, and elemental analysis. Both chitins exhibited similar chemical structures and physicochemical properties. Adult H. parallela is thus a promising alternative source of chitin.

Nutritional value of three <i>Blattodea</i> species used as feed for animals

“…The samples were then mineralized in a muffle furnace at 550 °C and the total amount of ash was measured. Additionally, chitin content was analysed according to Liu et al (2012) using hydrolysis with 1M hydrochloric acid and 1M sodium hydroxide. Because chitin is a nitrogenous polysaccharide, the nitrogen content was also analysed in these hydrolysed samples to refine total crude protein content.…”

Bat guano as new and attractive chitin and chitosan source

“…In recent studies, 15-25% chitin has been isolated from the dried exoskeleton of Crustacea such as prawn, shrimp, crab and lobster [21][22][23]. It is noted that the chitin contents of the total body structure dry weight of insects including Agabus bipustulatus, Anax imperator, Bombyx mori, Holotrichia parallela, Hydrophilus piceus, Notonecta glauca, Ranatra linearis and silkworm chrysalides ranges from 10% to 20% among the different species [13,[24][25][26]. Alternatively, it was presented by Sajomsang and Gonil [27] that 36% of cicada sloughs were chitin.…”

“…While the CrI values of chitins isolated from organisms such as crab and insects in former studies were observed to be between 54 and 91% [13,26]. Moreover, it was observed that chitins isolated from fungi and resting eggs have quite low CrI values [11].…”

“…The strongest peak was at 19.42°and this was followed by the one at 9.32° (Figure 4). The XRD peaks of the chitin isolated from the bat guano show considerable similarity with the alpha chitins isolated from organisms such as insects, fungi, crab, shrimp, krill, Gammarus and crustacean resting eggs in previous studies [11,13,21,24,[38][39][40]. The characteristic bands for alpha chitin are two sharp peaks of approximately 9 and 19°and then four weak peaks of 13, 21, 23 and 26°on average.…”

“…Recently, there has been a need for new chitin sources in line with the discovery of new usage areas for chitin and its derivatives in areas such as biotechnology and extreme biomimetics [8][9][10]. Some studies have considered the utilization of fungi, insects and corals as alternative chitin sources [11][12][13]. In recent studies, it has been determined that there are insect shells within bat guano and accordingly there is chitin in the bat guano [14,15].…”