Ecology, Environment and Conservation Paper

STUDY OF BIOPOLYMER CHITIN COASTAL AND SPECIES VARIATION

Varad Ravindra Pradhan* and Atul N. Bedekar

Abstract

The study is aimed to determine the base line composition of commercial shrimp shell waste, its conversion to Chitin by chemical treatments and to find out the correlation between the Chitin quality from different stations and from the most abundant species of India. Commercial shrimp shell waste with head were collected from four stations viz.Thane, Ratnagiri, Cochin and Tutticorin and were analysed for chitin, proteins, minerals and other parameters.Also most abundant species of shriMp viz. Penaeus indicus and Penaeus monodon were also analysed for the same.The basic composition from all four stations were compared depending on the most abundant species from each station. Results showed that the Chitin composition from Penaeus monodon shells and the stations where it was abundant i.e Cochin and Tutticorin was much more as compared to other stations.Whereas the Chitin composition from Penoeus indicus shells and the stations where it was abundant i.e.Thane and Ratnagiri was much less than the other stations. But the Chitin extracted from Penaeus indicus shells was whiter as compared to the Penaeus monodon shells and hardly required any bleaching treatment for colour improvement. In Panaeus indicus shells the minerals were found to be much more than Penaeus monodon shells.Whereas in Penaeus monodon proteins were in much more quantity than in Penaeus indrcus In this study the quantification of proteins was done as acid soluble and alkali soluble proteins.