Enzymatic production of N-acetyl-D-glucosamine from crayfish shell wastes pretreated via high pressure homogenization

This study presents an efficient pretreatment of crayfish shell using high pressure homogenization that enables N-acetyl-D-glucosamine (GlcNAc) production by chitinase. Firstly, the chitinase from Serratia proteamaculans NJ303 was screened for its ability to degrade crayfish shell and produce GlcNAc as the sole product. Secondly, high pressure homogenization, which caused the crayfish shell to adopt a fluffy netted structure that was characterized by Scanning electron microscope (SEM), Fourier transform infrared spectrometer (FT-IR), X-ray diffraction (XRD), was evaluated as the best pretreatment method. In addition, the optimal conditions of high pressure homogenization of crayfish shell were determined to be five cycles at a pressure of 400 bar, which achieved a yield of 3.9 g/L of GlcNAc from 25 g/L of crayfish shell in a batch enzymatic reaction over 1.5 h. The results showed high pressure homogenization might be an efficient method for direct utilization of crayfish shell for enzymatic production of GlcNAc.