The advances in research of complexes of chitosan and its derivatives

摘要

Chitosan is a partially deacetylated polymer of acetyl glucosamine obtained byalkaline deacetylation of chitin. It displays interesting properties such as biocompatibility, biodegradability as its degradation products are non-toxic, non-immunogenic, and non-carcinogenic. It can be modified chemically for the presence of amino and hydroxyl groups to prepare functional derivatives of chitosan. Chitosan and its derivatives have good adsorption ability for metal ions due to theirs high percentage of nitrogen, amino and hydroxyl groups on their chemical structure act as chelation sites for metal ions. This article reviews the developments of the studies on coordination between chitosan, derivatives and metal ions, as well as the applications of chitosan-based complexes in many fields such as antibacterial effect, the catalysts, metal recovery and detection, and agriculture.