Abstract:
Chitin is the second most available polysaccharide after cellulose. Chitin and N-acetyl-D-glucosamine polysaccharide, can be converted to valuable products by using homogeneous catalysis, most of the chitin generated by food processing is treated as industrial waste. For chitin conversion to useful chemicals has been investigated less than cellulose conversion. Therefore, in this research, chitin conversion was investigated. The result was divided into four part. The first part, the result showed that ball milled pretreatment could increase the conversion of chitin, which indicated that the crystallinity of the chitin had been reduced by the ball milled pretreatment. In the second part, hot compressed water for chitin conversion without catalyst could be converted to other chemicals, but the product not selective with lactic acid. Moreover, the effect of metal oxides was studied on chitin conversion into lactic acid. The result showed that MgO gave the high yield of lactic acid. 10.8 % yield of lactic acid was obtained by using MgO. The optimal condition for chitin conversion was 533 K reaction temperature 6 h reaction time and amount of MgO 1%wt. In the final part, the reaction mechanism was investigated. The base site of the catalyst played an important role in chitin conversion. The MgO catalyst could be recovered after the reaction and reused twice with no decrease in the lactic acid yield.
