Efficient and ecological leather processing: replacement of lime and sulphide with dispase assisted by 1-allyl-3-methylimidazolium chloride

Leather is a collagen-based biomass prepared from raw skins or hides by a series of unit operations, in which the unhairing and fiber opening are extremely important operations. However, the conventional Na2S/Ca(OH)2 system used in unhairing and fiber opening has given rise to the pollution to the environment. It is necessary to develop substitute technology for the Na2S/Ca(OH)2. In the present study, 1-allyl-3-methylimidazolium chloride ([AMIm]Cl) was used to cooperate with dispase for cycle unhairing and one-pot beamhouse to recycle waste bovine hides and com-pared with conventional processing. During those processes, the mechanism of [AMIm]Cl-dispase synergistic unhair-ing and collagen fibers opening were studied. Besides, plant hazard, organic matter and [AMIm]Cl of wastewater from [AMIm]Cl-dispase process were respectively investigated and separated to evaluate the environmental and economic benefits of the [AMIm]Cl-dispase process. As a result, enzyme activity after unhairing by [AMIm]Cl-diapase system for using 5 times is higher than that by KCl-dispase system, and needs lower unhairing time, which is because of rapid penetration of [AMIm]Cl-dispase solution in bovine hides. For this reason, the tensile strength and elastic modulus of tanned leather from [AMIm]Cl-dispase process are higher than those from the KCl-diapase and conventional pro-cesses, and its hydrothermal shrinkage temperature is comparable to that of the conventional one. Because of the 58.13% lower wastewater discharge (WD), 66.60% lower total solids (TS), 97.23% lower ammonia nitrogen (NH3-N), non-toxic wastewater and organic matter recovery in wastewater are reached from [AMIm]Cl-dispase process, which is expected to be an alternative to the conventional process to reduce environmental pollution and realize the sustainable development of technology for leather manufacturing.

Biorefinery of bacterial cellulose from rice straw:enhanced enzymatic saccharification by ionic liquid pretreatment

The pretreatment of rice straw is often used to enhance the hydrolysis. 1-allyl-3-methylimidazolium chloride （ [ AMIM ] C1） is a kind of low viscous, nontoxic and recyclable ionic liquid. It was used to treat rice straw and improve the enzymatic hydrolysis of rice straw in this study. The factors influencing the pretreatment were as follows： the dosage of rice straw in [ AMIM ] Cl, crush mesh of rice straw, pretreatment temperature and time. After the pretreatment with a 3 % （the weight ratio of rice straw to ionic liquid） rice straw dosage in [AMIM]Cl at 110 ℃ for 1 h, the yield of reducing sugar of regenerated rice straw by 33 U/mL cellulase hydrolysis was 53.3 %, which was two times higher than that of un-treated rice straw （23.7 % ）. More researches regarding straw biorefinery to bacterial cellulose are being performed in the lab and prospective results will be published in near future.