Preparation of low molecular weight chitosan using solution plasma system

The solution plasma system was introduced to treat chitosan solution in order to prepare low molecular weight chitosan. The plasma treatment time was varied from 0 min to 300 min. The plasma-treated chitosan was characterized including viscosity, molecular weight by GPC, and chemical characteristics by FT-IR. The results showed that after treated with plasma for 15–60 min, the viscosity of chitosan solution and apparent molecular weight of chitosans were remarkably decreased, compared to those of untreated sample. Longer treatment time had less effect on both viscosity and molecular weight of samples. Eventually, long treatment time (≥180 min) showed no influence on both viscosity and apparent molecular weight. This suggested that the degradation process of chitosan occurred during plasma treatment. FT-IR analysis revealed that chemical structure of chitosan was not affected by solution plasma treatment. TOF-MS results showed that chitooligosaccharides with the degree of polymerization of 2–8 were also generated by solution plasma treatment. The results suggested that solution plasma system could be a potential method for the preparation of low molecular weight chitosan and chitooligosaccharides.