Enzymes In Leather Industry
Leather Industry
• This industry generates more than $53.8 billion USD
worldwide each year
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Leather Processing
• In leather industry
– Preparatory stages
– Tanning and
– Crusting
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Leather-Preparatory Stages
– Unwanted raw skin components are removed
– Preservation
– Soaking-usually in water
– Deliming-unwanted protein removal
– Unhairing
– Fleshing- subcutaneous material is removed
– Spilitting- cut into two or more horizontal layer
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Leather-Preparatory Stages
– Reliming- more protein removal
– Deliming- liming and unhairing chemicals are
removed
– Bating- proteolytic enzymes are added
– Degreasing-natural oils and fats are dripped
– Frizing- physical removal of the fat layer inside the
skin
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Leather-Preparatory Stages
– Bleaching- chemical modification of dark pigments
– Pickling-decrease the pH to acidic value in presence
of salt
– Depickling- increasing the pH to allow the entry of
tanning agents
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Leather - Soaking Phase
• Alkaline proteases are added in the soaking phase
• This improves water uptake by the dry skins,
removal and degradation of protein, dirt and fats
and reduces the processing time
• In some cases pancreatic trypsin is also used in
this phase
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Leather - Processing
• Leather industry uses proteolytic and lipolytic
enzymes in leather processing
• The use of these enzymes is associated with the
structure of animal skin as a raw material
• Enzymes are used to remove unwanted parts
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Enzymes in
Pre-Tanning and Soaking
• Proteolytic enzymes
• Proteases
• Peptidases
• pH is between 2.5 and 6.0
• Temperature 60 Co
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Microorganisms Used in Soaking
• Aspergillus parasiticus
• Bacillus subtillis
• A. oryzae
• A. flavus
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Dehairing and Dewooling Phases
• In dehairing and dewooling phases, enzymes are used to
assist the alkaline chemical process
• This results in a more environmentally friendly process
and improves the quality of the leather (cleaner and
stronger surface, softer leather, less spots)
• The used enzymes are typically alkaline bacterial
proteases
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Advantages in Dehairing
• Reduction in use of sodium sulphide
• Recovery of good quality hair
• Better strength
• Greater surface area
• Simplification in reducing no. of steps
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Lipases
• Lipases are used in this phase or in bating
phase to specifically remove grease
• The use of lipases is a fairly new
development in leather industry
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Bating and Degreasing
• Use of pancreatic enzymes-35-37oC
• Bated skins produce good physicochecmical
properties
• Degreasing:
• pH-3.6
• Temp-28-32oC
• Time-40 min
• For by product utilization:20-40oC
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Bating
• Bating aims at deliming and deswelling of
collagen
• In this phase the protein is partly degraded to
make the leather soft and easier to dye
• Pancreatic trypsin was originally used but
they are partly replaced by bacterial and
fungal enzymes 16
Stages Enzymes Involved Functions of Enzymes
Curing No direct involvement To preserve hides and
skins
Soaking Alkaline & Pancreatic To remove non-fibrillar
Proteases Proteins
Dehairing Alkaline & Neutral To improve the waste
Proteases water quality
Degreasing Lipases & Proteases To remove the Fats
Bating Trypsin & alkaline To make soft, supply &
proteases pliable
Tanning No direct involvement To influence the quality of
tanning
Waster Trypsin & proteolytic Chronic tanned-waste
Processing enzymes processing 17
Treatment of Leather
• Treatment of leather with TG, together with
keratin or casein, has a beneficial effect on the
subsequent dyeing and colour properties of leather
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