Water vapor sorption by chitin-containing materials

Water vapor sorption by natural polysaccharides, namely, chitin-glucan complexes extracted from native biomass of higher fungi, chitin of bees, Arthropoda chitin, and cotton cellulose, is studied. A model of the sorption is proposed. It is shown that the analytical expression derived for sorption isotherms in terms of this model satisfactorily describes the process for different chitin-containing materials in a wide range of humidity. The main parameters of absorption isotherms are determined for examined samples. The analysis of the experimental data indicates that chitin-glucan complexes obtained from fungi demonstrate higher sorption ability, as compared with the reference sample of cotton cellulose and chitin of animal origin.