ALTERNATIVE PROCESS FOR THE INDUSTRIALIZATION OF SWINE COAT FOR THE EXTRACTION OF KERATIN

Abstract

The industrial activities of swine slaughter are responsible for generating large amounts of solid waste. The present work identified the potential for use of the swine coat. In this context, the work's general objective was to develop alternative methods and processes for the unconventional use of swine hair as a raw material to obtain value-added products on an industrial scale. The most relevant results were the unconventional processes, on an industrial scale, to get liquid and solid keratin. The development of the alternative process was based on laboratory-scale tests and respective analyzes that allowed the validation of the results. The processes and their respective operational conditions were explained, complemented with the total and partial mass balance of the transformation processes on an industrial scale. The method for keratin extraction was effective in alkaline hydrolysis using 1.25 mol.L-1 sodium hydroxide at a temperature of 45 °C for 270 minutes. These results showed the possibility of using swine hair in powder form to obtain liquid keratin and using the liquid product to generate solid keratin. In this way, unconventional processes are contributed to the industrialization of slaughterhouse waste.