Table 1.

Main monomers used for derivatization of chitin and chitosan by grafting copolymerization.

Monomers	Applications	References
Chitin “grafting from” copolymers
Acrylamide	Water absorbents, chelating agents	[82]
Acrylic acid	Water absorbents, chelating agents. Wound dressing. Nanofibers	[82,85,88]
Methyl methacrylate	Gel-like mass for biomedicine	[84]
Itaconic acid	Waste-water treatment	[86]
Indole	Antimicrobial activity	[87]
$\mathsf{\epsilon }$-caprolactone	Biomedical field	[90]
Glycidytrimethylammonium chloride	Wound healing	[91]
Pyrrole	Electrically-conducting material	[94]
Chitosan “grafting from” copolymers
Acrylic acid	Controlled release devices, ion-exchange bioseparation, antibacterial activity, removal of heavy metal ions	[95,103,104,111]
N-butyl acrylate	Biodegradable packaging materials, recovery of heavy metals from waste waters	[105,109]
Iodine	Cervical antibacterial biomembrane	[110]
acrylamide-co-acrylic acid	Drug release hydrogels	[112]
Styrene	Recovery of heavy metals from waste waters	[105]
Aniline	Antibacterial activity	[121]
PNIPAm	Biomedical field: tissue engineering, drug delivery systems.	[96,97,98,99,100,101,102,106,107,108,113,123,145]
Lactide	Gene delivery, complex with DNA	[119]
$\mathsf{\epsilon }$-caprolactone	Nanoparticle stabilizer, drug delivery systems	[37,116,117,118]
N-vinyl-2-pyrrolidone	Antimicrobial activity, nanoparticle stabilizer	[115,116]
Carbamate (urethane)	Drug delivery systems	[120]
Indole	Antimicrobial activity	[87]
Chitosan “grafting onto” copolymers
Pluronic	Injectable cell delivery carrier, gene expression, controlled release	[140,141]
$\mathsf{\epsilon }$-caprolactone	Drug carriers, antimicrobial activity	[125,126,127]
Ethylene glycol	Bioactive molecules delivery, polymeric surfactants, gene delivery, apoptosis-inducing activity.	[128,131,133,135,137,138]
PNIPAm	Drug/gene delivery,	[57,58,98,142,143,144,145,146]
PVCL	Controlled drug delivery systems	[147,148,149,150,151,152,153,154]