The degradation of solid-state chitosan was studied by γ-ray irradiation. The experimental results demonstrated that if the absorber dose was 184.1 kGy the molecular weight decreased from 1.07×10 6 to 1.16×10 5 (in air) and 1.72×10 5 (in N 2)

and the values of G (S) were 0.75 and 0.57 respectively. Another degradation process by the electron beam irradiation was also investigated. If the absorber dose was 200 kGy the molecular weight decreased from 1.14×10 6 to 7.67×10 4

and the value of G (S) was determined to be 1.02 (in air).