Structural Characterization of Chitosan-Clay Nanocomposite

Novel materials originating from renowable sources mainly consist of biopolymers and their composites or nanocomposites. A typical material belonging to this group is chitosane (CS), which is a cationic natural polysaccharide that can be produced by alkaline N-deacetylation of chitine. Chitosane has a variety of applications in biomedical products, cosmetics, and food processing [1,2]. Organic-inorganic hybrid materials basing on chitosane and nanoclay (montmoryllonite, MMT) were characterized by the vibrational spectrocopy methods (Micro-Raman spectroscopy and FT-Raman spectroscopy) and the thermal analysis methods (TG, DSC). It was shown, that small amount on a nanofiller (MMT, 3 wt.%) used to modify the polymer matrix influences the structure of its polymeric chains.