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US 5,705,634 AGranted
High yield preparation of dimeric to decameric chitin oligomers
AssigneePerImmune Holdings, Inc.
InventorsReinhard Bredehorst, Nicholas Pomato, Oliver Scheel, Joachim Thiem
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Abstract
The present invention is directed to a new process for the production of chitin oligomers, including fragmentation, partial hydrolysis and recovery. This process produces high yields, especially of higher (tetra- to deca-) chitin oligomers.
Claims56
A process for the production of water-soluble chitin oligomers comprising the steps of:
- (a) fragmenting chitin to particles with a mean diameter of 120 .mu.m or less;
- (b) mixing the chitin particles with a concentrated hydrohalogen acid solution to achieve partial hydrolysis;
- (c) neutralizing the reaction mixture to limit the hydrolysis of the chitin particles;
- (d) desalinating the neutralized chitin hydrolysates from step (c) by a method selected from the group consisting of:
- (1) electrodialysis, wherein the number of membranes used is proportional to the salt content of the diluate;
- and (2) flow filtration using a ceramic membrane;
- and
- (e) separating the desalted chitin oligomers from the desalted reaction mixture of step (d).
5 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.