• Korean Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
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• v.34 no.5
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• pp.473-477
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• 2001

Chitosan has been used as an effective adsorbant for the treatment of wastewater from seafood processing. We investigated the effects of deacetylation degree (DD) and molecular weight (MW) of chitosan on protein adsorption ability and also the optimum conditions of chitosan treatment for protein adsorption in 3 kinds of protein (albumin, hemoglobin and albumin-myoglobin mixture) solutions. The higher deacetylation degree and the lower molecular weight chitosan, the higher adsorption for water soluble proteins was accomplished. The optimum pHs for adsorption of albumin, hemoglobin and albumin-myoglobin mixture (4: 1, w/w) were 4.0, 7.0 and 4.0 respectively and the optimum time was $3\~4$ hrs for all proteins. Sodium chloride in the model system of protein solution was a preventing factor for protein adsorption ability of chitosan (DD=$80\%$, MW=350 kDa).