Review on the application of chitin and chitosan in chromatography

Chitin and chitosan have great potential to be applied in industrial scale separation processes because they are natural, renewal biopolymers that have the added benefits of being nontoxic and mechanically and chemically stable. They have been readily used in liquid chromatography as a stationary phase due to a variety of functional groups present in the unit of the polymer chain: an amine group at the C2 position, -CH3 moieties in the acetamido group at the C2 position, and -OH groups at the C3 and C6 positions. The biopolymers have been tested as a stationary phase for chromatographic separation of several compounds: metal cations, proteins, food compounds, drugs, or chiral mixtures. They have been used as a coating on silica or cellulose particles without any modification, or after modification with different substituents. The presented review outlines the state-of-the-art research pertaining to chitin and chitosan application in liquid chromatography.