The manufacture of leather covers a wide productive chain and beyond contributes to the economic flow. The various stages of leather processing result in high volumes of solid waste. In Brazil, a daily generation of 375 tons of solid waste is estimated, and landfills are still the most used route to its destination. In this review, emphasis will be given to researches that have sought alternatives for the use of solid waste from the tannery industry. Among the main applications of solid tannery wastes, the following stand out production of adsorbent materials, biodiesel, biogas, biopolymers, applications in agriculture and other applications involving extraction/recovery of compounds of industrial/commercial interest, isolation of microorganisms and production of enzymes and applications in the animal diet. In each alternative of waste application, the technologies used, the opportunities, and the challenges faced are mentioned. We hope that this review can provide valuable information to promote the broad understanding of the possibilities that tannery solid wastes has for the development of biodegradable and agricultural products, wastewater treatment, extraction of compounds of industrial and commercial interest, among others.
The overuse of polymer materials from fossil sources has generated a large volume of waste that causes environmental impacts due to the degradation time. The technological advance has stimulated the search for alternatives that can contribute to sustainability. In this context, the use of biodegradable polymers, that use raw materials from renewable sources stand out because they have that ability to form films and come from abundant sources. Also, in the expectation of optimizing the environmental benefits in this process, it is possible to value the agroindustrial residues, using them as raw material in the synthesis of the polymer, the physical, chemical and mechanical properties of these polymers are important to evaluate the possible applications. The proposal of this chapter is to present current research on renewable sources, including agricultural and industrial residues, to obtain biodegradable polymers, highlighting their properties and possibilities of application.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.