A physicochemical characterization of fully acetylated chitin structure isolated from two spider species: With new surface morphology

• α-Chitin extraction from two spider species.
• Chitin content of spider species.
• Physicochemical characterization of spider chitin extracted from two spider.
• New surface morphology for chitin.

Spiders are a huge group which includes more than 44,000 species. But there has been no study of the chitin structure of spiders. In this study we physicochemically characterized chitin structure of two common spider species (Geolycosa vultuosa and Hogna radiata). Chitin content was determined as 8–8.5% for G. vultuosa and 6.5–7% for H. radiata. FTIR, TGA and XRD results showed that the chitin structures are in α-form. Environmental scanning electron microscopy (ESEM) revealed that the surface morphology of each species is different. Chitin yielded from G. vultuosa has two different pore structures. The type one pore is rarely sequenced and its size ranges between 190 and 240 nm, while the type two pore is tightly sequenced and its size ranges between 11 and 32 nm. There is no information in previous studies about the chitin structure with two different pore morphologies. A new chitin surface morphology has been determined in G. vultuosa. The chitin isolated from H. radiata, has classic morphology: nanofibre structures (10–17 nm) and 195–260 nm sized pores. Acetylation degree of the chitin samples was calculated as 97% for G. vultuosa and 99% for H. radiata in accordance with elemental analysis results.