Chitin film production, characterization and evaluation of cytotoxicity from Caligula japonica head

Insects considered harmful to some plants become bio-waste after they are collected for plant protection purposes. It is very important industrially to transform these bio-wastes into technological materials rather than incineration. Caligula japonica damages many plants such as walnut, chestnut, apple, reduces fruit yield and even causes the tree to die. In this study, a three-dimensional natural chitin film was produced from the head of the C. japonica pupa, which is collected in large quantities from nature. As a result of the FTIR analysis, it was revealed that the produced films were in the form of alpha chitin and consisted of nanofibers that could be observed very clearly according to SEM analysis. The maximum degradation temperature of the resulting chitin film was measured to be 367,8°C. As a result of XRD analysis, two sharp peaks were recorded in 9,42° and 19,52° which are characteristic for chitin. The cytotoxicity analysis performed on the L929 mouse fibroblast cell line revealed that the chitin film did not have any cytotoxic effect at 24, 48 and 72 hours. As a result, a natural, three-dimensional, nanofiber film with biocompatible properties was produced to be used in future biomedical applications.