Main author: Vivien Nagy
Institution or Company: University of Iceland
Co-Authors, Institution or Company:
Már Másson, University of Iceland. Hélène L. Lauzon, Primex ehf.
Introduction: Chitosan is a marine polysaccharide with a broad spectrum of antimicrobial activity. It is biodegradable, biocompatible, and non-toxic. However, chitosan possesses poor aqueous solubility, limiting its applications as an antimicrobial material. With chemical modification, the biological properties can be improved.
Methods: A valuable chitosan derivative, N,N,N-trimethylchitosan (TMC) has enhanced antibacterial activity and water solubility compared to chitosan. The aim was to develop and optimize a one-pot procedure for highly trimethylated chitosan.
Results: The optimization was achieved via the Design of Experiment (DOE) approach, which involves a systematic investigation to optimize systems with multiple variables so that minimal experiments are required. The DOE identifies the factors that affect the responses and then uses statistical analysis to evaluate the results.
Conclusions: A new production method for TMC was developed and optimized with the DOE approach. The degree of trimethylation was significantly improved from 10% to 72% in one step. The method had excellent reproducibility, shortened reaction time and resulted in a high-quality product.
