with an Ubbelohde viscosimeter (Technico, ASTM D. 445) at room
temperature. The solvent used for chitin was dimethylacetamide/
LiCl and for chitosan, 0.2 M acetic acid/0.3 M sodium acetate. The
viscosity-average molecular weight (Mv) was obtained from
viscosity equation using MarkeHouwink parameters according to
the equation:
½h ¼ kðMvÞa (2)
where [h] is the intrinsic viscosity and k, a are constants. These
parameters were determined for chitin (k ¼ 0.24 cm3 g1 and
a ¼ 0.69) and chitosan (k ¼ 0.078 cm3 g1 and a ¼ 0.76) (Mirzadeh