Advances in Functional Chitin Materials: A Review

Chitin is a promising natural polymer to produce functional materials due to the attractive combination of abundance, price, favorable biological properties, and biodegradability. However, multiple literature examples often confuse processing of chitosan, the deacetylated version of chitin, due to chitosan’s much higher solubility in traditional solvents. Nonetheless, despite current challenges to solubilize natural chitin, there is still a large body of literature demonstrating multiple ways to manipulate this polymer into materials of desired forms and properties. Here we review one such area where chitin promises both technological superiority and potential for commercial success, the use of chitin in biomedical research. We discuss techniques which have been utilized to process chitin and to prepare chitin-based functional materials, particularly in the production of fibers, films, beads, and hydrogels. Emphasis is given to the most recent methods and a compilation of a compelling collection of examples based on current research and existing products. These examples demonstrate the suitability of chitin for production of surgical sutures, wound care materials, tissue engineering biomaterials, and other various biomedical applications.