EXTRACTION OF CHITIN FROM PENAEUS MONODON SHELL WASTES USED AS FOOD PRESERVATIVE AND LIFE ENHANCER

Abstract

Chitin and its associated chemical compounds are the most potential and functional substrates which have a vital role to perform in various medicinal, agricultural and industrial fields. In this study, Penaeus monodon shell wastes and infected prawn samples were collected from the local fish market. From the infected prawn samples, a total of 5 seafood pathogens and shell waste total of 54 associated bacteria were isolated. Then collected bacteria cultures were tested for proteolytic and chitinolytic activities. The proteolytic evaluation was performed in casein hydrolyzing agar and chitinolytic behaviour was detected by the colour change in bromocresol purple agar using stranded methods and techniques. In the present study, bacterial strain SVCAS34 showed maximum activity in all tests. In this experiment, the chemical method shows 34.2 % of chitin but the biological method produces yield around 20.12%. Produced chitin film was tested against fresh tomato to check whether it effectively controls the shelf-life period. It was found to be no damage at room temperature by using chitin film after 10-12 days of incubation. This indicates that chitin increases the life span of post-harvested vegetables and fruits. The prepared chitin was tested for their inhibitory and bacterial effects. The outcome of the study exhibited that E. coli showed a maximum zone of inhibition compared to other tested pathogens. Therefore this study proved that these important properties of chitin may have a great scope in several fields of commercial applications with economic interests.