Understanding the chemical free enzyme based cleaner unhairing process in leather manufacturing

Higher cost of enzyme is one of the major factors for the system not being practiced through found environmentally friendly. Through understanding of enzyme based unhairing sans lime and sodium sulfide is essential to develop enzymes of low cost. Understanding of the enzyme-substrate is therefore imminent. The release of PG and carbohydrate was found to be more in the case of EBS compared to Lime-Sulfide System (LSS). The onset of complete removal of hair was found to take place after 4 h in the case of EBS. The trend of release of PG was found to be in congruence to the trend of degree of hair loosening. The micrographs of histological staining also corroborated the findings. Complete hair removal was achieved in 5 h in the case of EBS. The hair loosening in the case of EBS is primarily due to break down of PG present in the hair follicle. If protease that could break down selectively the protein core of the proteoglycans (PG), then with much lesser amount of protease hair loosening could be achieved. And the cost of EBS could therefore be brought down significantly.