Process Parameter Influence on Chitin Yield from Tilapia Fish Scales: A Statistical Approach

The extraction of valuable resources from waste materials, including chitin, is a crucial element of sustainable development. Despite the availability of chitin in abundant supply in nature, it remains largely untapped due to chitin materials being considered, generally, as waste. Therefore, this study investigated the effective extraction of chitin from tilapia fish scale waste for future valorisation of the chitin waste. The experimental runs and optimization were determined using Central Composite Design (CCD) of Response Surface Methodology (RSM) in Design Expert software with four experimental factors for chitin production. Demineralization and deproteinization using HCl (0.5 – 6.5 M) and NaOH (0.5 – 2.5 M), respectively led to the production of the chitin. The agreement between the Predicted R² (0.9666) and the Adjusted R² (0.9888) suggests high consistency and reliability of the model predictions. The optimal product was achieved at 1M HCl for 12 hours demineralization, 1M NaOH, and 2 hours deproteinization to produce Chitin. The sample of Chitin produced shows a single band for amide I at 1652 cm-1 (amide I) representing C= O stretching vibrations, and another at 1543 cm-1 (amide II) indicating N-H bending and C-N stretching vibrations, confirming the presence of β-chitin. The morphology showed that the chitin is porous and fibrous. The moisture content, ash content, bulk density and pH being 9.6%, 3.1%, 0.15 g/ml and 7.2, respectively.