358-373Fish scales have been extensively reported as waste material that takes a lot of time to degrade, causing environmental pollution. This work has been substantiated to summarize a sequence of chemical processes (demineralization, deproteinization, and deacetylation) used for the extraction of useful product like chitosan from fish scale (Labeo rohita). The obtained chitosan have been efficiently characterized by SEM, FTIR, XRD, TGA, XRF, and proximate analysis. The small particle size (3.3748 ΞΌm) and the high surface area (4.046 m2/g) of the produced cost-effective chitosan (0.26 USD/g) have justified its applicability as an antimicrobial filler. The degree of deacetylation have been reported to be 52.11% along with a high capacity of water binding (160%) and fat binding (457%), indicating its biodegradable nature. The individual effect of the essential parameters like deacetylation time, deacetylation temperature, and amount of NaOH added, influencing the yield percent have been studied using the central composite design approach of response surface methodology. The maximum yield percent have been reported to be 29.63% for the optimized conditions of 4.48% of NaOH content, 6.624 hr deacetylation time, and 58.2Β°C deacetylation temperature
