Compositions of chitin and hydrophilic and/or lipophilic wax, compositions of chitin and cellulosic material, and related methods for producing same

Abstract

Described herein are composites and mixtures comprising chitin and a hydrophilic and/or lipophilic polymer wax, and various uses thereof. Also described herein are self-supporting structures comprising molded and dried cellulose-based slurries having chitin generally uniformly distributed throughout. Also described are methods of forming a self-supporting structure, including: providing a cellulose-based slurry; distributing chitin generally uniformly throughout the cellulose-based slurry thereby to form a modified cellulose-based slurry; and molding the self-supporting structure using the modified cellulose-based slurry. Also described are self-supporting structures comprising chitin generally uniformly distributed about at least a surface of a respective cellulose-based structure.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.