New Nanocomposite Materials Based on Cellulose Fibers and Other Biopolymers - Natural Polymers, Biopolymers, Biomaterials, and Their Composites, Blends, and IPNs - page 156

Figure 2. Visual (A) and SEM micrographs (B) of starch.
Chitosan (CH) (Figure 3), the major, simplest, and least expensive chitin deriva-
tive, is a high molecular weight linear polymer obtained by deacetylation of chitin and
is therefore composed of 2-amino-2-deoxy- D -glucose units linked through b (1®4)
bonds. Chitin, on its hand is the main component of the exoskeleton of crustaceans
and considered as the second most abundant natural polymer on earth (Peniche, 2008).
Chitosan exhibits unique physicochemical properties like biocompatibility, antimicro-
bial activity, biodegradability and excellent film-forming ability, which have attracted
scientific and industrial interest in fields such as biotechnology, pharmaceutics, bio-
medicine, packaging, cosmetics, among others (Peniche, 2008).
Figure 3. Chitosan sample (A) and its chemical structure (B).
A brief overview of composite materials based on cellulose fibers (vegetal cellu-
lose, bacterial cellulose and nanofibrillated cellulose) with other natural polymers such
as chitosan and starch will be presented.
Cellulose-Chitosan Nanocomposites Films
A significant number of studies dealing with the combination of chitosan with cel-
lulose (Hasegawa, 1992; Lima, 2000; Shih, 2009; Twu, 2003), in solution or using
the cellulose fibers in solid state, and its derivatives (Mucha, 2003, 2005), have been