Synthesis and Characterization of a Novel Soluble Diethoxy Phosphoryl Chitosan

A simple and efficient method for the preparation of a novel soluble chitosan derivative, diethoxy phosphoryl chitosan (PH‐chitosan), has been developed. Ph‐chitosan was characterized by elemental analysis, FT‐IR, NMR, ICP, XRD, TG and SEM, respectively. The chemical identity of PH‐chitosan was determined by FT‐IR and confirmed by NMR, and those results unequivocally demonstrated that diethoxy phosphoryl groups were grafted onto the amino and hydroxyl groups of chitosan. The results of XRD indicated that the crystalline structure of chitosan was destroyed due to the incorporation of diethoxy phosphoryl group resulting in loss of hydrogen bond. The analysis of TG demonstrated that PH‐chitosan was less thermal stable than chitosan. This simple synthetic method provided a new and available approach to prepare a soluble high molecule weight chitosan derivative.