Chitin was extracted from shrimp shells and then deacetylated to obtain chitosan. The degree of deacetylation of the chitosan was determined to be 0.76 using pH-metric titration. A large number of cyanide functional groups were introduced onto chitosan by grafting with polyacrylonitrile as an efficient way of modification. The graft copolymerization reactions were carried out under argon atmosphere in a homogeneous aqueous phase (containing a small portion of acetic acid) by using ceric ammonium nitrate as an initiator. Evidence of grafting was obtained by comparing FTIR spectra of chitosan and the graft copolymer as well as solubility characteristics of the products. The synthetic conditions were systematically optimized through studying the influential factors, including temperature and concentrations of the initiator, acrylonitrile monomer (AN), acetic acid, and chitosan. The effect of individual factors was investigated by calculating and monitoring the variations of the grafting parameters [i.e., grafting ratio (Gr), grafting efficiency (Ge), add-on value (Ad), homopolymer content (Hp), and total conversion (Ct)]. Under optimum conditions, the grafting parameters were achieved as 535, 98, 81, 2, and 102%, respectively. A mechanism for the free-radical grafting was proposed. As empirical rates of polymerization and graft copolymerization were plotted against [AN] and [Ce4+](1/2), the experimental kinetic data displayed a good match to a reported rate statement. The overall activation energy for the graft copolymerization was determined to be 44.9 kJ/mol. (C) 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.