Production of chitosan from brewery waste
After a material project with chitosan there was the question for other sources next to fishing waste. The material it self has some good characteristics. It is antibacterial, antifungal, biodegradable and recyclable. I managed to make some foils out of it and developed a packaging concept.
Asking for the source of chitosan I found some disadvantages. It is expensive, complex to produce and comes with long shipping from other continents.
You can find chitosan also in brewery waste, so i started to experiment with it. By using a paper from P. Pochanavanich and W. Suntornsuk (Fungal chitosan production and its characterization) I made a first try.
I got brewery waste from Ehringsdorfer Brauerei, also used bakers yeast to compare the results, and did the steps one by one.
File:Ex.jpg 
File:Zentrifugieren.jpg
My result was very little of chitosan extracted from the yeast.
Further steps:
Simplify the process and produce more chitosan to make some own foils.
about me: Lara Anna Weller Product-Design, 2nd Semester Master