Experimental investigation on cleaner process of enhanced fat-oil extraction from alkaline leather fleshing waste

The lipid content in leather fleshing waste is very high and hence, an innovative method for the complete extraction of lipid for biofuel generation was carried out. Acid/base assisted fat extraction method was developed for industrial application without the use of inorganic solvents. The lipid yield of about 25.4% was achieved with 98% of extraction efficiency when the extraction was carried out with 4% of H2SO4 at 120 degrees C for 1.5 h. Acid hydrolysis assisted Soxhlet method extraction yielded of about 26% with 100% extraction efficiency in 1.5 h at 80 degrees C with reduced solvent consumption and time. The acid hydrolysis method is also industrially viable to process a huge quantity of fat rich solid waste materials. Also, the energy consumption is comparatively low when compared to the traditional solvent extraction method. The hydrolyzed leather fleshing and fat oil is characterized by FTIR, SEM, TGA, GC-MS and H-1 NMR spectroscopy. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.