I Made Chitin Boogers
My first attempt at making colloidal chitin failed. Instead of winding up with usable powder, my product looked exactly like boogers. The protocol I used worked fine until the very last step; the drying procedure was all wrong. I wish I had a photo of what I got, because there's no way to describe how very boogerlike the stuff I manufactured was. My half gram of chitinous snot went straight into the garbage. I need a pure, water-free, unscorched product so that I can control the concentration in my final medium. Boogers are not just esthetically displeasing, they're also variable.
I'll take another pass at it today using a yet to be specified heat-free method of drying. That should do the trick.
The good news is that the rest of the protocol worked fine and I can make the oligomers needed. I have plenty of chitin suspension left, so I don't have to repeat the entire process. Besides, now I know the secret of booger manufacturing. I can turn crab shell extract into sticky, waxy snot. Will the wonders of science never cease?
