METHOD There are two common methods of chitin extraction; biological and chemical.

The cheaper way of extraction of chitin from cockroaches is the chemical method. There are three basic steps in chemical method of chitin extraction, the first step in chemical method is demineralization which aims to eliminate the calcium carbonate content in the chitanous source this step includes the use of inorganic acids preferably HCl, the next is deproteinisation in this step the main objective is to remove the proteins present in the specimen chemical method uses alkali in deproteinisation, and the last is the elimination of lipids and color which is commonly known as decoluorisation application of organic solvents such as NaOH is used in this step. Chemical method predominantly, leads to the formation of monomers to trimers. But the disadvantage of using chemical method is that chtin can possibly be denatured due to application of the wrong amount of acids, denaturation of chitin will cause it to break its structure and will affect its solubility. Another disadvantage of chemical method is the toxicity and the corrosive property of the substances used in the process which may lead to environmental problems in disposing the chemical by-products in the process.