Determination of the viscometric constants for chitosan and the application of universal calibration procedure in its gel permeation chromatography

Abstract

The viscometric constantsa andK in the Mark-Houwink equation were determined in 0.5 M acetic acid-0.5 M.sodium acetate solution for chitosan fractionated by gel filtration. The weight-average molecular weight of each fraction was measured by the light-scattering method. The values obtained area=0.59 andK=0.119 cm³ g⁻¹.

The molecular weightsMw andMn for fractionated chitosan were measured by GPC. The value ofMw by GPC was much different from that by light scattering and, therefore, a universal calibration procedure was applied to the data by GPC. It was concluded that, also in the case of a cationic polysaccharide such as chitosan, the universal calibration procedure is effective for obtaining the reliable molecular weight by GPC.