Biological extraction of chitin from fish scale waste using proteolytic bacteria Stenotrophomonas koreensis and its possible application as an active packaging material

• Published in: Biomass conversion and biorefinery Vol. 14; no. 22; pp. 29023 - 29033
• Main Authors: Suresh, Sreehari, Umesh, Mridul, Santosh, Adhithya Sankar
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Berlin/Heidelberg Springer Berlin Heidelberg 2024; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Biocompatibility; Biodegradation; Biological activity; Biological effects; Biological properties; Biopolymers; Biotechnology; Chemical activity; Chitin; Chitosan; Energy; Enzyme activity; Fermentation; Fish; Fourier transforms; Infrared analysis; Material properties; Microorganisms; Original Article; Packaging; Polymers; Renewable and Green Energy; Scavenging; Thermogravimetric analysis; Biodegradation; Chitin; Chitosan; Antioxidant activity
• ISSN: 2190-6815; 2190-6823
• DOI: 10.1007/s13399-023-03865-y

Chitin being the second most abundant polymer found in nature has extensive application and versatile material properties including biocompatibility. Extraction of chitin from diverse sources are majorly done using chemical extraction methods using high concentration of alkali that makes the method non eco-friendly and economically non-viable. This calls for eco-friendly methods of chitin extraction from cost-effective substrates through green methods. This research work presents a simplified one-step biological extraction of chitin from fish scales by successive fermentation using Stenotrophomonas koreensis isolated from soil. The fermentative approach for chitin extraction from fish scales using S. koreensis enzyme activity is not reported elsewhere in the available literature to the best of our knowledge. Chitin yield of 28% (w/w) was obtained after the successive fermentation. The extracted polymer was characterized using differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), Fourier transform infrared (FTIR), X-ray diffraction ( XRD), and thermo gravimetric analysis ( TGA). Furthermore, the possibility of converting extracted chitin into an active packaging material was explored by chemically, converting it to chitosan followed by analysis of its DPPH scavenging activity. The DPPH radical scavenging activity varied from 67.025 to 80.2%, which corresponds to 0.25 to 2 mg/mL of chitosan. The chitosan films fabricated were subjected to biodegradation studies using soil burial method. Biodegradation rate of chitosan films was observed to be 21.49 ± 0.62% (w/w) after 50 days of incubation. Thus, the present research work highlights an integrated waste valorization strategy through microbial fermentation for commercially important biopolymer production.