Crude proteolytic enzyme from Bacillus halodurans BCRC 910501 and its application in leather processing.

Enzymes are biological catalysts that exist in all living organisms. Proteases are one of the most important enzymes in the industry; microbial proteases are widely used in the food, textile, detergent, and leather industries. Traditionally, alkaline proteases are used in the leather industry for bating, however, due to environmental issues, there are many investigations for the application of proteolytic enzymes in other operations such as soaking, unhairing, and derma opening up. This study aimed to produce a proteolytic enzyme from B. halodurans BCRC 910501 and apply it to the soaking of salted hide. After cultivation, the crude enzyme was used for further analysis and leather processing. The results showed an enzyme with higher caseinolytic activity compared to keratinolytic activity. A soaking study found that enzyme improves rehydration, non-collagenous protein, and salt removal. Enzymatic soaking affected collagenous proteins more than the control, but did not significantly impact wet-blue leather properties. Using this enzyme in leather processing might be suitable to reduce the duration of soaking and the number of process steps.

Wet Blue Enzymatic Treatment and Its Effect on Leather Properties and Post-Tanning Processes.

Due to their variety, specific activity, and mild reaction conditions, enzymes have a wide application in beam house processes such as soaking, dehairing, bating, and de-greasing. Recently, due to improvements in biotechnology, re-bating after chroming has received increased attention. The aim of this work was to investigate the application of enzyme preparation in the re-bating process and its effect on the semifinished and finished product, as well as its influence on post-tanning operations. The enzymatic treatment of chromed semifinished leather (wet blue) led to a higher shrinkage temperature (1-6 °C), greater water vapour absorption (0.3-5.5%), better chromium compounds exhaustion during re-chroming (4-21%), and better dye penetration. Moreover, collagen was affected during the enzymatic process; the results showed a greater concentration influence in the operation compared to the process time. On the other hand, no effect on the physical and mechanical properties and fat-liquoring process was observed. Overall, these results indicate that some properties and processes are improved; however, before use for re-bating, every enzyme should be carefully investigated.

Enzymes for Leather Processing: Effect on Pickling and Chroming.

Recently, increasing attention has been paid to the application of enzymes in a wide variety of leather production processes. The aim of the present study was to investigate the action of enzymatic pickling on derma's collagen and the influence of this action on subsequent processes and properties of chromed and finished leather. The application of active in acidic medium proteolytic enzymes in the pickling process led to an additional impact on derma structure: collagen was more strongly affected and the porosity of the pelt dermis was reduced, but the hide became more thermally stable. The enzymatically pickled pelt bonded more chromium and reached higher shrinkage temperature while chroming; dyes penetrated deeper; such leather bonded more fatliquors. On the other hand, the action of enzymes worsened the physical-mechanical properties of the leather, as the experimental leather was weaker than the conventional one. The first was characterised by weaker grain layer and had significantly higher relative elongation. Therefore, as some properties improve and others worsen during such a process, the application of every enzyme should be carefully investigated and optimized to produce a leather with defined properties.

Assessment of the Impact of Temperature on Biofilm Composition with a Laboratory Heat Exchanger Module.

Temperature change over the length of heat exchangers might be an important factor affecting biofouling. This research aimed at assessing the impact of temperature on biofilm accumulation and composition with respect to bacterial community and extracellular polymeric substances. Two identical laboratory-scale plate heat exchanger modules were developed and tested. Tap water supplemented with nutrients was fed to the two modules to enhance biofilm formation. One "reference" module was kept at 20.0 ± 1.4 °C and one "heated" module was operated with a counter-flow hot water stream resulting in a bulk water gradient from 20 to 27 °C. Biofilms were grown during 40 days, sampled, and characterized using 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing, EPS extraction, FTIR, protein and polysaccharide quantifications. The experiments were performed in consecutive triplicate. Monitoring of heat transfer resistance in the heated module displayed a replicable biofilm growth profile. The module was shown suitable to study the impact of temperature on biofouling formation. Biofilm analyses revealed: (i) comparable amounts of biofilms and EPS yield in the reference and heated modules, (ii) a significantly different protein to polysaccharide ratio in the EPS of the reference (5.4 ± 1.0%) and heated modules (7.8 ± 2.1%), caused by a relatively lower extracellular sugar production at elevated temperatures, and (iii) a strong shift in bacterial community composition with increasing temperature. The outcomes of the study, therefore, suggest that heat induces a change in biofilm bacterial community members and EPS composition, which should be taken into consideration when investigating heat exchanger biofouling and cleaning strategies. Research potential and optimization of the heat exchanger modules are discussed.