Temperature Effect of Water Coagulation Bath on Chitin Fiber Prepared through Wet-Spinning Process

Chitin was chemically extracted from crab shell waste and dissolved in N,N-dimethyl acetamine/5% lithium chloride (DMAc/5% LiCl) at room temperature to obtain 1% and 2% concentrations of chitin solution. Chitin fibers were prepared by phase inversion at different temperatures of water coagulation bath at 5, 20, and 60 °C. The deconvolution of FTIR spectra indicated that the area portion of the intermolecular hydrogen bonding NH(…)OC increased at 60 °C due to the higher density of the chitin segment in the fiber. As a result, scanning electron microscope (SEM) measurement suggests that a denser structure of the chitin fiber was observed when the temperature of the coagulation bath increased. In addition, the resultant chitin fibers generated better mechanical properties relative to the amount of chitin concentration and temperature. At 2% of chitin solution, the tensile strength significantly increased from 80 to 182 MPa for the fiber obtained at temperatures of 5 and 60 °C of the water coagulation bath, respectively. Meanwhile, the water content in the fiber significantly decreased from 1101% to 335%. This green synthesis route has high potential for the fabrication of the fiber as future material of interest for biomedical application.