Efficient Chemo-Enzymatic Transformation of Animal Biomass Waste for Eco-Friendly Leather Production

Abstract

Enzymatically processed animal biomass derived from treated bovine hides (wet blue scraps) is herein used as building block for the synthesis of a novel biopolymer. An enzymatic hydrolysis process allows to produce water-soluble lower molecular weight proteins (Bio-A), which are then reacted with glycerol and maleic anhydride (MA) in order to obtain a new intermediate (Bio-IA). With Bio-IA in hand, co-polymerization in the presence of acrylic acid is then carried out. Hydrolysed biomass, intermediates and the final biopolymer (Bio-Ac) have been characterized by means of NMR, FTIR and GPC analysis. Bio-Ac shows good performance when used as retanning agent to produce leather. Physical and mechanical properties of the leather treated with Bio-Ac have been compared with acrylic resin retanned leather, showing similar performance. The reported protocol represents an environmental-friendly interesting alternative to traditional petrochemical based retanning agents, commonly used by the leather industry.

Sustainable Triazine-Based Dehydro-Condensation Agents for Amide Synthesis

“…Our research group has long been involved in the study of innovative sustainable processes for fine chemistry [ 51 , 52 , 53 , 54 ]. Recently, our studies have focused on the development of new dehydro-condensation agents.…”

Synthesis of Amidation Agents and Their Reactivity in Condensation Reactions

“…18,19 Variations in BCP shrinking temperature (Ts) were measured before and after the reaction to evaluate the cross-linking efficiency of the triazine bis-quaternary ammonium salt (preformed or in situ formulation), as previously reported for DMTMM. 10,17 Cross-linking experiments were carried out according to the protocol optimized in our previous work, 10,18 simply by adding to a water suspension of BCP, the triazine bis-quaternary ammonium salts or a 2,4-dichloro-6-substituted-1,3,5-triazine and a tert-amine in 1/2 molar ratio. Preliminary tests were carried out with a molar ratio between COOHcoll and 2,4-dichloro-6-substituted-1,3,5-triazine of 4/1 (mol/mol), corresponding to half the amount normally employed with DMTMM.…”

“…Preliminary tests were carried out with a molar ratio between COOH coll and 6-substituted 2,4-dichloro-1,3,5-triazine of 4:1 (mol/mol), corresponding to half the amount normally employed with DMTMM. 10,18 In Table 3 only the results achieved for amidation agents giving Ts values above 70 °C are summarized. From data in Table 3, it is possible to observe that Ts of collagen samples cross-linked by isolated MIATMM (entry 5) and MEATMM (entry 6) were higher compared to MMT-MM (entry 2).…”

Efficient Triazine Derivatives for Collagenous Materials Stabilization

“…At the same time, the demand for fossil-based products is constantly increasing, not only for plastic production, but also for many other applications. In this scenario, bio-based polymers are becoming an increasingly attractive and eco-friendly alternative to fossil-based polymers [ 3 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 ]. The global market’s growing trend for green polymers and bioplastic packaging materials is expected to reach $51.2 billion by 2023 [ 12 ].…”