Page 320 - Advances in Textile Biotechnology

Chitin, chitosan and bacterial cellulose for textiles 301

had a positive influence on acceleration of the wound-healing process.

Cotton-like fibres were prepared from chitosan-combined glycosamynogly-
cans, namely hyaluronic acid, chondroitin sulfate and heparin using the
wet-spun technique by Hirano et al. (2001). Between 5 and 33% of glycos-

aminoglycans were present in the fibre materials making them mechanically
weaker, but also allowing the development of targeted release strategies as
an alternative wound healing approach. The effect of the molecular weight
and treatment concentration on the antimicrobial activity of chitosan-
treated cotton fabrics has been investigated by Shin et al. (2001b). The
antimicrobial activity of chitosan-treated fabrics seems to be more affected
by the treatment concentration rather than by the molecular weight of the
biopolymer. Chitosan has also been immobilized onto cotton fabrics using

polycarboxylic acid (BTCA) and this treatment significantly affected the
antimicrobial activity of the fabrics against Gram-positive and Gram-
negative bacteria and fungi tested (El-tahlawy et al., 2005). Lim and Hudson
(2004) studied the antimicrobial activity of O-acrylamidomethyl-N-[(2-
hydroxy-3-trimethylammonium)propyl] chitosan chloride (NMA-HTTC),
a water-soluble derivative of chitosan. This derivative contains acrylamido-
methyl functional groups, which can react with cellulose under alkaline

conditions. The fibre-reactive chitosan derivative showed complete bac-
terial reduction within 20 min. Chitosan was blended with polyurethane
(Shih and Huang, 2003) and the mixture was used to treat woollen fabrics.
The experimental results indicated an improvement in both the shrink-
proof and the antimicrobial properties of the fabric, but yellowing of the
fabric and softness decrease were also observed.
Chitin and chitosan and their derivatives have been shown to be promis-
ing materials in tissue engineering and regeneration. Their nanofi bres are
continuous and potentially allow for integrated manufacturing of 3D nano-

fibrous scaffold with high porosity and high spatial interconnectivity (Dzenis,
2004; Ma et al., 2005). Another application of chitin and chitosan in waste
water treatment (chelation) has been described by Gerente et al. (2007).
One of the most effective methods for purification and isolation of the

enzyme chitinase is chitin affinity chromatography, which employs chitin as

the adsorbent to selectively adsorb chitinase from the fermentation broth.
To increase its adsorption capacity, chitin is usually processed in a chemical
or controlled enzymatic way. Recently, Kao et al. (2009) demonstrated a
fermentation approach to increase the chitinase adsorption capacity of
chitin in the enzyme affi nity purification process. The method involves the

controlled bacterial (Paenibacillus sp.) treatment of chitin where enzymes
from bacteria serve to partially hydrolyse chitin and obtain fi bre-like struc-
tures with deep pores to provide more sites for subsequent adsorption of
chitinases. It was also suggested that the fermentation process provided not
only the chitinase hydrolytic effect, but also an unknown modifying effect

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