Patent Application
20100112663
The present invention relates to the use of lipase in degreasing skins and hides during the processing of skins and hides into leather. More specifically the lipase can be used in various steps during beam house process from pH 6-13 with or without other chemicals or surfactants.
Skins and hides contain regions of natural fat. However, excess fat needs to be reduced during the leather manufacturing process in order to achieve a satisfactory finish of the final leather product.
Degreasing of skins and hides is currently accomplished by use of organic solvents and surfactants.
Recently the use of lipolytic enzymes in order to improve degreasing of hides and skins has been suggested, thereby reducing or even avoiding the use of surfactants or as a substitute for organic solvents, particularly a lipase derived from Humicola lanuginose (EP 258068 and EP 305216) sold under the trademark GREASEX® (product of Novozymes NS). WO 00/60063 describes a number of variants of this Humicola lanuginose lipase and their use in detergents, however its degreasing use in leather industry is not mentioned.
When compared to traditional methods, enzymatic degreasing processes generally improve the quality of the final leather, reduce the use of chemicals and replace chemicals which have an adverse effect on the environment.
Lipolytic enzymes hydrolyze fats into mono- and diglycerides, free fatty acids and glycerol. Lipase degreasing has been mentioned at acidic to alkaline pH conditions. However lipase takes effect in emulsified system but less effective in a one phase solution contains more than 50% of water, therefore the use of specific lipase which gives good effect in water system without adding any surfactants or keeps the surfactant use as minimum degree is a challenging problem and solving this problem will give many advantageous. Besides, if lipase can be used in both alkaline condition and neutral to acidic condition (from pH 6-13) in various steps may give other advantageous in reducing and selecting chemicals and surfactants in an optimal way.
There is an ever existing need for providing new lipases with improved degreasing properties in a variety of leather manufacturing process.
The inventors have found that certain variants of wild type Humicola lanuginose lipase (these variants have been disclosed in WO 00/60063) have a particularly good degreasing performance in leather manufacture. These lipase variants can be used in degreasing in the absence of surfactants.
Accordingly, the present invention provides a process for enzymatic degreasing of skins and hides, comprising enzymatic treatment with certain variants of wild type Humicola lanuginose lipase in an aqueous solution under pH 6-13.
The process of the present invention improves the degreasing property and reducing the use of other chemicals and surfactants in a maximum way.
The present invention is further illustrated by reference to the accompanying drawing, in which:
Peaks explanation in
Peak in 5.780 min indicates palmic acid; peaks in 14-20 min indicate various triglycerides, among them 17.7-18 min is trioleate peak; peaks in 20.71-21.4 min is solvent peaks.
The present invention provides a method for the processing of hides or skins into leather, comprising enzymatic treatment of the hide or skin with a certain lipases.
The Processing of Hides or Skins into Leather
The hides and skins are usually received in the tanneries in the form of salted or dried raw hides or skins. The processing of hides or skins into leather comprises several different process steps including the steps of soaking, unhairing, liming, deliming, bating, pickling and tanning. These steps constitute the wet processing and are performed in the beamhouse. Enzymatic treatment according to the present invention may take place at the steps of pH within 6-11 during the manufacture of leather. However, lipase degreasing of the present invention are usually employed during the wet processing, i.e., during soaking, unhairing, bating and/or pickling.
Processes for the manufacture of leather are well known to the person skilled in the art and have been described in, e.g., WO 94/06942, WO 90/12118, U.S. Pat. No. 3,840,433, EP 505920, GB-A 2233665 and U.S. Pat. No. 3,986,926.
The process of the present invention may be applied to any skin or hide conventionally used for leather manufacturing. In particular, the process of the invention may be applied to ovine skins, to porcine skins, to bovine hides, or to caprine skins.
Enzymatic degreasing according to the present invention may take place at the steps of pH within 6-11 during the manufacture of leather, either as a separate step or as part of an existing leather processing step. However, the process preferably takes place during, or in between, process steps that are carried out at pH 6-13 in order to avoid unnecessary and time consuming pH adjustment.
The process of the present invention is carried out at pH 6-13. The process is preferably carried out at a pH in the range of about pH 7-11. In its most preferred embodiment the process of the invention is carried out at a pH in the range of about pH 8-11.
The process of the invention for enzymatic degreasing takes place during one or more of the subsequent steps of soaking, unhairing, liming, deliming, bating and pickling. In a leather manufacturing process, the soaking step generally takes place in the range of pH 8-9, unhairing at a pH of 9-13, deliming at a pH of 8-13 and bating at about pH 8. For the pickling step, the pH at the beginning of the step is about 8, and pH drops to around 2 at the end of this step. In a preferred embodiment, enzymatic degreasing takes place at bating step or the beginning stage of the pickling step.
In another preferred embodiment, the process of the invention for enzymatic degreasing takes place as a separate step, performed any period of time after soaking, unhairing, liming, deliming, bating or pickling has been finished. At the end of the pickling step, pH of the reaction mixture is usually in the range of pH 1-3 (around pH 2). When the process of the invention takes place during the pickling step, there will be a time slot for enzyme to take effect under pH 6-8 (e.g., 7) for 1-1.5 hours. There will be some advantageous for enzyme degreasing during pickling step since the skin structure has been opened by other chemicals or enzyme treatment in previous step, it makes easier for lipase to penetrate in the skin and take effect. On the other hand, if the lipase is added in the earlier steps, the advantageous are longer time and optimal pH for lipase to take effect although the penetration of lipase is worse than added in the pickled step.
The process of the invention may be carried out at temperatures normally employed in leather manufacturing processes, i.e., in the range of from about 15° C. to about 65° C., or even up to about 75° C. Dependent inter alia on the hide or skin in question the temperature preferably is kept in the range of from about 20° C. to about 40° C. (in particular when applied to ovine hides), or in the range of from about 30° C. to about 40° C. (in particular when applied to bovine hides).
In a process according to the present invention for enzymatic degreasing of skins and hides, the skin or hide is treated with a lipase in an aqueous reaction medium, in order to hydrolyze fats present in the skin or hide.
The degreasing with the lipase of the present invention works well in the absent of surfactants. When surfactant is used, the surfactant preferably is an anionic, a non-ionic, or an amphoteric type surfactant, or a mixture thereof. Moreover, organic solvents may be present during the lipolytic treatment, but organic solvents are not needed in a process of the invention. Therefore, out of environmental concern, the reaction mixture should be kept free of organic solvents.
The reaction time greatly depends on the process requirement, basically the lipases works well under most of the process conditions in the beam house. For practical reasons a reaction time in the range of 30 minutes to 24 hours is contemplated. Preferably the reaction time is in the range of 0.5-16 hours, more preferred 0.5-4 hours, most preferred 0.5-2 hours.
When hydrolysis takes place, hydrolysis products are formed. These reaction products should be removed from hides and skins.
Hydrolysis products may be removed by separating hides and skins from the aqueous reaction medium. Preferably the hides and skins are subsequently washed repeatedly with water. In case of the process has a higher pH (e.g., pH>11), the saponification will automatically happens with the fatty acids formed by lipase and therefore to produce soaps helping emulsification of the fat and fatty acids without adding more external surfactants. Therefore the use of such lipase will reduce the use of surfactants in a maximum way.
The surface active agent used in an aqueous mixture for removal of the hydrolysis products may be any conventional surfactants. However, anionic, non-ionic and amphoteric type surfactants are preferred, either as separate surfactants or in mixture.
The reference lipase used in this invention is the wild type Humicola lanuginose lipase derived from Humicola lanuginose strain DSM 4109. It is described in EP 258068 and EP 305216 and has the amino acid sequence shown in position 1-269 of SEQ ID NO: 2 of U.S. Pat. No. 5,869,438. In this specification, the reference lipase is shown as amino acids 1-269 of SEQ ID NO: 1 of the present invention.
The variants of this Humicola lanuginose lipase and it use in detergent have already been mentioned in WO 00/60063.
The variant lipases of the invention of course have lipase activity and show good effect in degreasing in leather manufacture. Lipases comprise conservative substitutions, insertions, deletions, N-terminal extensions, and/or C-terminal extensions, as well as lipase fragments as compared to the sequence of amino acids 1-269 of SEQ ID NO: 1 can be prepared from this molecule by any method known in the art, such as site-directed mutagenesis, random mutagenesis, consensus derivation processes (EP 897985), and gene shuffling (WO 95/22625, WO 96/00343), etc.
The amino acid changes allowed for the variant lipase of the invention are of a minor nature, that is conservative amino acid substitutions or insertions that do not significantly affect the folding and/or activity of the protein, preferably a small number of such substitutions or insertions; small deletions; small amino- or carboxyl-terminal extensions, etc. In the above context, the term “small” independently designates a number of up to 25 amino acid residues. In preferred embodiments, the term “small” independently designates up to 24, 23, 22, 21, or up to 20 amino acid residues. In additional preferred embodiments, the term “small” independently designates up to 19, 18, 17, 16, 15, 14, 13, 12, 11, or up to 10 amino acid residues. In further preferred embodiments, the term “small” independently designates up to 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, or up to 1 amino acid residue.
In preferred embodiments, the variant lipase which has been derived from a parental lipase of amino acids 1-269 of SEQ ID NO: 1 by substitution, insertion and/or deletion at one or more of the following positions: 1, 24, 33, 60, 62, 83, 84, 87, 91, 94, 96, 99, 101, 102, 189, 209, 225, 228, 231, 233, 244, 249, 251, 255, 263, 264, 265, 266, 267, 269, 270, 271, 272. More preferably, the lipase variant comprises one or more of the following substitution insertion and/or deletion: E1A; K24C; N33Q; V60G; D62A,E; S83T; R84W; E87K; G91A,D; N94K; D96L,S,W; E99K,N; N101S; D102G; T189G; R209P; G225P; V2281; T231R; N233R; T244R; Q249R; N251D; G255R; G263Q; L264A; 1265T; G266S; T267A; L269N; 270PCL, AGVF, PGLPFKRV, CP, RE, SPG, WVP, LLASSGRGGHR, VTT, VLQ, TST, LRI, AGGFS; 271 G; 272L. Further more preferably, the lipase variant comprises double-substitution at positions 231 and 233; even more preferably, double-substitution of T231 R and N233R.
Most preferably, the variant lipase is one of the following variant (substitutions in parentheses are optional):
The nomenclature used herein for defining mutations is essentially as described in WO 92/05249. Thus, T231R indicates a substitution of T in position 231 with R. PGL or 270P+271G+272L indicates the peptide addition PGL attached to the C-terminal (L269).
The lipase of the invention may be applied in concentrations conventionally employed in degreasing processes. The lipase may be added in an amount of from 10 to 600 KLU per kg of hide or skin, preferably of from 50 to 400 KLU per kg of hide or skin, more preferably of from 100 to 300 KLU per kg of hide or skin.
The lipase of the present invention can be used together with surfactant in degreasing. Additionally, the composition may comprise another enzyme and other components conventionally used in leather industry.
The leather degreasing composition according to the invention can be in liquid, paste, gels, bars or granular forms.
The lipase of the invention, or optionally another enzyme incorporated in the leather degreasing composition, is normally incorporated in the composition at a level from 0.00001% to 3% of enzyme protein by weight of the composition, preferably at a level from 0.001% to 2% of enzyme protein by weight of the composition, more preferably at a level from 0.01% to 1% of enzyme protein by weight of the composition, even more preferably at a level from 0.1% to 1% of enzyme protein by weight of the composition.
The surfactant system may comprise nonionic, anionic, cationic, ampholytic, and/or zwitterionic surfactants. As described above, the lipase variants of the invention are particularly suited for leather degreasing comprising of a combination of anionic and nonionic surfactant with 0-40% by weight of anionic surfactant and 60-100% by weight of nonionic, particularly 0-30% of anionic surfactant and 70-100% nonionic. As further described, some preferred lipases of the invention are also suited for leather degreasing comprising 20-30% anionic and 70-80% non-ionic surfactant.
The surfactant is typically present at a level from 0.1% to 60% by weight of composition, e.g., 1% to 40%, particularly 3% to 30%, preferably from 10-30%, more preferably from about 12% to about 25% by weight. Some examples of surfactants are described below.
Preferred anionic surfactants include alkyl sulfate, alkyl ethoxy sulfate, linear alkyl benzene sulfonate and mixtures of these.
The alkyl sulfate surfactants are water soluble salts or acids of the formula ROSO3M wherein R preferably is a C10-C24 hydrocarbyl, preferably an alkyl or hydroxyalkyl having a C10-C20 alkyl component, more preferably a C12-C18 alkyl or hydroxyalkyl, and M is H or a cation, e.g., an alkali metal cation (e.g., sodium, potassium, lithium), or ammonium or substituted ammonium.
Alkylbenzene sulfonates are suitable, especially linear (straight-chain) alkyl benzene sulfonates (LAS) wherein the alkyl group preferably contains from 10 to 18 carbon atoms.
Suitable anionic surfactants include alkyl alkoxylated sulfates which are water soluble salts or acids of the formula RO(A)mSO3M wherein R is an unsubstituted C10-C24 alkyl or hydroxyalkyl group having a C10-C24 alkyl component, preferably a C12-C20 alkyl or hydroxyalkyl, more preferably C12-C18 alkyl or hydroxyalkyl, A is an ethoxy or propoxy unit, m is greater than zero, typically between about 0.5 and about 6, more preferably between about 0.5 and about 3, and M is H or a cation which can be, for example, a metal cation (e.g., sodium, potassium, lithium, calcium, magnesium, etc.), ammonium or substituted-ammonium cation. Alkyl ethoxylated sulfates as well as alkyl propoxylated sulfates are contemplated herein. Specific examples of substituted ammonium cations include methyl-, dimethyl, trimethyl-ammonium cations and quaternary ammonium cations such as tetramethyl-ammonium and dimethyl piperdinium cations and those derived from alkylamines such as ethylamine, diethylamine, triethylamine, mixtures thereof, and the like.
Other anionic surfactants include salts (including, for example, sodium, potassium, ammonium, and substituted ammonium salts such as mono-, di- and triethanolamine salts) of soap, C8-C22 primary or secondary alkanesulfonates, C8-C24 olefinsulfonates, sulfonated polycarboxylic acids prepared by sulfonation of the pyrolyzed product of alkaline earth metal citrates.
The surfactant may comprise polyalkylene oxide (e.g., polyethylene oxide) condensates of alkyl phenols. The alkyl group may contain from about 6 to about 14 carbon atoms, in a straight chain or branched-chain. The ethylene oxide may be present in an amount equal to from about 2 to about 25 moles per mole of alkyl phenol.
The surfactant may also comprise condensation products of primary and secondary aliphatic alcohols with about 1 to about 25 moles of ethylene oxide. The alkyl chain of the aliphatic alcohol can either be straight or branched, and generally contains from about 8 to about 22 carbon atoms.
Further, the nonionic surfactant may comprise polyethylene oxide condensates of alkyl phenols, condensation products of primary and secondary aliphatic alcohols with from about 1 to about 25 moles of ethylene oxide, alkylpolysaccharides, and mixtures hereof. Most preferred are C8-C14 alkyl phenol ethoxylates having from 3 to 15 ethoxy groups and C8-C18 alcohol ethoxylates (preferably C10 avg.) having from 2 to 10 ethoxy groups, and mixtures thereof.
Preferred nonionic surfactants are alcohol ethoxylate, alcohol phenol ethoxylate, polyhydroxy fatty acid amide, alkyl polyglucoside and mixtures of these. The commercially available example of nonionic surfactant is EUSAPON® OD, Lutensol® ON60 or Neodol® 25-7.
The lipolytic activity may be determined using tributyrine as substrate. This method is based on the hydrolysis of tributyrine by the enzyme, and the alkali consumption is registered as a function of time.
One Lipase Unit (LU) is defined as the amount of enzyme which, under standard conditions (i.e., at 30° C.; pH 7.0; with Gum Arabic as emulsifier and tributyrine as substrate) liberates 1 micro mol titritable butyric acid per minute.
The invention is further illustrated with reference to the following examples, which are not intended to be in any way limiting to the scope of the invention as claimed.
This example demonstrated the process of the invention as applied to pickled England domestic sheep skin. The skin was subjected to lipase treatment with a lipase variant of two substitutions T231 R+N233R in SEQ ID NO: 1 (obtained according to WO 00/60063).
Residue trioleate: trioleate is a triglyceride containing three identical oleic acids in each of the ester bonds. Since it is the most widely existed TG in animal skin, it can be used as an index to see the degreasing degree.
Palmic acid: it is one of the popular fatty acid type exist in animal skin, since the oleic acid has lower melting point, it can go into the wash liquor during degreasing and the following process, therefore most of the remaining fatty acids left in sheep skin are high melting point fatty acids, and palmic acid is one of them. It is measured to indicate the formation of fatty acids in the sheep skin.
The example was carried out as five groups of trial running in parallel (see group 1-5 of Table 2). The surfactant or lipases were added in the buffer according to Table 2 in degreasing step for each of the comparison trials.
Among them, EUSAPON® OD 4% was used in an industrial standard degreasing method. Blank was only buffer. Untreated was the original pickled skin without any degreasing treatment used as a comparison.
The fat % was calculated according to weight loss in CHCl3 extraction, it can be either the FA or TG or DG (diglycerides) or MG (monoglycerides) or their combinations. The fat % remained in the skin after lipase treatment was 6.7% (group 2) or 8.2% (group 3), while the fat % remained after surfactant Eusapon OD 4% treatment was more than 14%. It indicates that the degreasing effect of the lipase of the present invention was much better than that of the surfactant.
Residue trioleate and palmic acid content in the extracts were calculated according to the standard curves measured by HPLC. The HPLC peaks for TGs and trioleate were not shown in the lipase treatment samples (
Further, it can be seen from the HPLC chart, there was no fatty acid peaks for 200 KLU lipase/kg skin treatment, which means the fatty acids might have been transferred into soaps by saponification, it may still left inside the skin or has been transferred out of the skin. While using 100 KLU lipase/kg skin, since the speed to form fatty acids was slower than that using 200 KLU lipase, the saponification was not completed, there is only one fatty acid peaks can be detected, the peak position is the same as palmic acid and oleic acid retention time, since oleic acid has lower melting points, it transferred into liquid and be washed easily than palmic acid. Therefore it was suspected most of the fatty acid detected by this peak was palmic acid which was 16.4 mg/ml (Table 2).
Sheep skins are prepared in the same way as example 1. The trial is carried out under the following condition.
The example was carried out as four groups of trial running. Two lipases were added in the buffer according to table 3 in degreasing step for each of the comparison trials. Blank was only buffer. Untreated was the original pickled skin without any degreasing treatment used as a comparison.
Reference lipase used in Group 2: Parent Humicola lanuginose lipase as SEQ ID NO: 1 of the present application.
Lipase used in Group 3: lipase variant with two substitutions T231R+N233R in SEQ ID NO: 1.
From the result in table 4, it can be seen when there are no surfactants in the system, lipases act differently in degreasing. Fat residue of variant lipase in group 3 is 13.6%, which it is much lower than that of Reference lipase which is almost the same as blank (17.4 vs. 17.9).
This example demonstrated the degreasing process as applied to limed sheep skin (available from Shanghai Oujiayu Trading Co., Ltd. PRC). The lipase used in this example and example 4 is a lipase variant of two substitutions T231R+N233R in SEQ ID NO: 1 (obtained according to WO 00/60063).
The example was carried out as eight groups of trial running. Lipase and/or surfactant EUSAPON® OD were added in the buffer according to Table 6 by weight of skin in degreasing step for each of the comparison trials. Blank was only buffer.
Fat extraction test was conducted according to the method in example 1, except that hexane was used in this example instead of CHCl3.
HPLC analysis was used to analyze residual fat composition, but only representative peaks were used to quantify triglyceride or free fat acid content.
It is clear from
The example was carried out as eight groups of trial running. Lipase and/or surfactant were added in the buffer according to Table 8 by weight of skin in degreasing step for each of the comparison trials. Blank was only buffer.
The nonionic surfactant were Lutensol® ON60 and Neodol® 25-7, while the anionic surfactant was short-chain LAS with an average hydrocarbon chain length of 11, with 25% LAS, 25% Neodol® 25-7 and 50% Lutensol® ON60.
| Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind | 371c Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PCT/EP08/54241 | 4/8/2008 | WO | 00 | 10/1/2009 |
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 60910702 | Apr 2007 | US |
