Chitin is the second most abundant biopolymer and functions as the main structural component in a variety of living organisms. In nature, chitin rarely occurs in a pure form, but rather as nanoorganized chitin-proteins, chitin-pigments, or chitin-mineral composite biomaterials. Although chitin has a long history of scientific studies, it is still extensively investigated for practical applications in medicine, biotechnology, and biomimetics. The complexity of chitin has required the development of highly sensitive analytical methods for its identification. These methods are crucial for furthering disease diagnostics as well as advancing modern chitin-related technologies. Here we provide a summary of chitin identification by spectroscopic (NEXAFS, FTIR, Raman, NMR, colorimetry), chromatographic (TLC, GC, HPLC), electrophoretic (HPCE), and diffraction methods (XRD, WAXS, SAXS, HRTEM-SAED). Biochemical and immunochemical (ELISA, immunostaining) methods are described with respect to their medical application. This review outlines the history as well as the current progress in the analytical methods for chitin identification.

几丁质是第二大最丰富的生物聚合物，并在多种生物中起主要结构成分的作用。在自然界中，几丁质很少以纯净形式出现，而是以纳米组织的几丁质蛋白，几丁质色素或几丁质矿物复合生物材料出现。尽管几丁质具有悠久的科学研究历史，但仍在医学，生物技术和仿生药物的实际应用方面进行了广泛的研究。几丁质的复杂性要求开发高度灵敏的分析方法进行鉴定。这些方法对于进一步诊断疾病以及发展与几丁质相关的现代技术至关重要。在这里，我们提供了几丁质鉴定的摘要，包括光谱学（NEXAFS，FTIR，拉曼，NMR，比色法），色谱法（TLC，GC，HPLC），电泳法（HPCE），和衍射方法（XRD，WAXS，SAXS，HRTEM-SAED）。生化和免疫化学（ELISA，免疫染色）方法就其医学应用进行了描述。这篇综述概述了几丁质鉴定分析方法的历史以及当前的进展。