Biological solubilisation of leather industry waste in anaerobic conditions: effect of chromium (III) presence, pre-treatments and temperature strategies

Fernández Rodríguez, Juana; Lorea Revilla, Beñat; González Gaitano, Gustavo

Biological solubilisation of leather industry waste in anaerobic conditions: effect of chromium (III) presence, pre-treatments and temperature strategies

dc.contributor.author	Fernández Rodríguez, Juana
dc.contributor.author	Lorea Revilla, Beñat
dc.contributor.author	González Gaitano, Gustavo
dc.contributor.department	Ciencias	es_ES
dc.contributor.department	Zientziak	eu
dc.contributor.department	Institute for Advanced Materials and Mathematics - INAMAT2	en
dc.date.accessioned	2023-04-03T10:45:24Z
dc.date.available	2023-04-03T10:45:24Z
dc.date.issued	2022
dc.date.updated	2023-04-03T10:37:18Z
dc.description.abstract	Collagen-based polymers and their blends have attracted considerable interest for new materials development due to their unique combination of biocompatibility, physical and mechanical properties and durability. Leather, a modified natural biopolymer made from animal rawhide and the first synthetic collagen-based polymer known since the dawn of civilization, combines all these features. Rawhide is transformed into leather by tanning, a process in which the collagen is crosslinked with different agents to make it stronger and more durable and to prevent its decay. Research on the development of environmentally friendly procedures and sustainable materials with higher efficiency and lower costs is a rapidly growing field, and leather industry is not an exemption. Chrome-tanned and vegetable-tanned (chromium-free) shavings from the leather industry present a high content of organic matter, yet they are considered recalcitrant waste to be degraded by microbiological processes like anaerobic digestion (AD), a solid technology to treat organic waste in a circular economy framework. In this technology however, the solubilisation of organic solid substrates is a significant challenge to improving the efficiency of the process. In this context, we have investigated the process of microbial decomposition of leather wastes from the tannery industry to search for the conditions that produce optimal solubilisation of organic matter. Chrome-tanned and chromium-free leather shavings were pre-treated and anaerobically digested under different temperature ranges (thermophilic–55 ◦C-, intermediate–42 ◦C- and mesophilic–35 ◦C) to evaluate the effect on the solubilisation of the organic matter of the wastes. The results showed that the presence of chromium significantly inhibited the solubilization (up to 60%) in the mesophilic and intermediate ranges; this is the fastest and most efficient solubilization reached under thermophilic conditions using the chromium-free leather shaving as substrates. The most suitable temperature for the solubilization was the thermophilic regime (55 ◦C) for both chromium-free and chrometanned shavings. No significant differences were observed in the thermophilic anaerobic digestion of chromium-free shavings when a pre-treatment was applied, since the solubilisation was already high without pre-treatment. However, the pre-treatments significantly improved the solubilisation in the mesophilic and intermediate configurations; the former pre-treatment was better suited in terms of performance and cost-effectiveness compared to the thermophilic range. Thus, the solubilisation of chromium-free tannery solid wastes can be significantly improved by applying appropriate pretreatments at lower temperature ranges; this is of utter importance when optimizing anaerobic processes of recalcitrant organic wastes, with the added benefit of substantial energy savings in the scaling up of the process in an optimised circular economy scenario.	en
dc.description.sponsorship	This research was funded by Navarra Government (Ayudas a Centros Tecnológicos y Organismos de Investigación program, Project PT025 AnAERObE) and by the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación of Spain, project PID2020-112713RB-C21.	en
dc.format.mimetype	application/pdf	en
dc.format.mimetype	application/zip	en
dc.identifier.citation	Fernández-Rodríguez, J., Lorea, B., & González-Gaitano, G. (2022). Biological Solubilisation of Leather Industry Waste in Anaerobic Conditions: Effect of Chromium (III) Presence, Pre-Treatments and Temperature Strategies. International Journal of Molecular Sciences, 23(21), 13647. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms232113647	en
dc.identifier.doi	10.3390/ijms232113647
dc.identifier.issn	1661-6596
dc.identifier.uri	https://academica-e.unavarra.es/handle/2454/45030
dc.language.iso	eng	en
dc.publisher	MDPI	en
dc.relation.ispartof	International Journal of Molecular Sciences, 23(21), 1-17	en
dc.relation.projectID	info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/Gobierno de Navarra//PT025/
dc.relation.projectID	info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/AEI/Plan Estatal de Investigación Científica y Técnica y de Innovación 2017-2020/PID2020-112713RB-C21/ES/
dc.relation.publisherversion	https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms232113647
dc.rights	© 2022 by the authors. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license.	en
dc.rights.accessRights	info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
dc.rights.uri	https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
dc.subject	Anaerobic digestion	en
dc.subject	Chromium	en
dc.subject	circular bio economy	en
dc.subject	Leather	en
dc.subject	Organic matter solubilisation	en
dc.subject	Resource recovery	en
dc.subject	Tannery waste	en
dc.title	Biological solubilisation of leather industry waste in anaerobic conditions: effect of chromium (III) presence, pre-treatments and temperature strategies	en
dc.type	info:eu-repo/semantics/article
dc.type.version	info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion
dspace.entity.type	Publication