Extraction of chitosan from mulberry silkworm pupae by different methods

Abstract

Silkworm pupa is one of the important by-products from silk reeling industries, which constitutes 75 to 85% of the cocoon weight and it is considered as waste in silk reeling industry. An investigation was made to evaluate the chitosan extraction methods and to study the impact of chitosan on cocoon economic traits. Chitosan was extracted from mulberry silkworm pupae by different methods viz., chemical, enzymatic and biological method using standard procedures. In the present results, the silkworm pupae chitosan had good solubility in dilute acids which was due to chemical extraction method compared to others.