Hydrophobic derivatives of chitosan: characterization and rheological behaviour.

Chitosans which are substituted with alkyl chains having a minimum of six carbon atoms demonstrate hydrophobic interactions in solution. The chemical structure of synthetized polymers is determined from NMR spectroscopy and microanalysis and the distribution between the different types of substituted units is obtained. In relation to the rheological behaviour different parameters are studied such as the nature of the hydrophobic chain and the substitution degree, the polymer concentration, the temperature and the ionic content of the polymeric solution. All the observations tend to prove the hydrophobic nature of the interaction mechanism.