The grafting of acrylamide onto chitosan initiated by ceric ammonium nitrate (CAN) was investigated at 30∼50℃. The graft polymerization was found to proceed predominantly in the presence of dilute acetic acid solution. The optimum conditions on the weight increase and the percentage of grafting were determinded by varing initiator concentration, monomer concentration and reaction time. Activation energy for initial reaction was estimated to be about 5.49 kcal/mole.