Utilization of vegetable tannins for stabilization of collagen fibers by using supported process enzyme
Department of Industries, College of Applied and Industrial Sciences, University of Bahri, P.O. Box13104-Khartoum, Sudan.
Research Article
World Journal of Advanced Research and Reviews, 2023, 18(01), 503–510
Article DOI: 10.30574/wjarr.2023.18.1.0625
Publication history:
Received on 02 March 2023; revised on 10 April 2023; accepted on 12 April 2023
Abstract:
Tanning is the process of treating animal skins or hides to produce leather, which is more durable and less susceptible to decomposition. The leather industry has been pushed to develop tanning systems that utilize natural products due to environmental concerns. Vegetable tanning is one of the oldest methods, but its usage is limited due to the high organic load in the effluent generated. This load is difficult to degrade and results in high biological and chemical oxygen demand. This study aimed to develop an eco-friendly tanning process for protein fibers using proteolytic enzymes. The goal was to improve the exhaustion of vegetable tannins by increasing their uptake during the tanning process. The optimized experimental process, which involved enzymatic treatment of protein fibers, resulted in an exhaustion of 97% compared to 83% in conventional vegetable tanning processes. Enzyme treatment before tanning also led to a slight improvement in hydrothermal stability, as well as slightly better physical properties of the resulting leathers compared to conventionally tanned leathers. The enzymatic process has the added benefit of reducing total solids (TS) and chemical oxygen demand (COD) loads in the identified streams by 80% and 33%, respectively.
Keywords:
Leather Industry; Vegetable Tanning; Acid Protease; Total Solids; Chemical Oxygen Demand
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Copyright © 2023 Author(s) retain the copyright of this article. This article is published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Liscense 4.0