Recipient Organization
TOMORROW WATER
1225 N PATT ST
ANAHEIM,CA 928012550
Performing Department
(N/A)
Non Technical Summary
Keratin is an intracellular protein in animal-body parts such as hairs, wool, nails, skins, feathers, hooves, claws, and others. They are a considerable part of slaughtering wastes brought into rendering plants and mostly disposed of at landfills, causing environmental issues such as CH4 emissions. The global keratin market is expected to grow considerably over the next 5 years primarily due to its increasing demand in the personal care and cosmetic industry. Keratin has favorable cares on skin and hair such as anti-aging and rejuvenating effects. However, the current commercial extraction process is based on chemical methods using a large volume of toxic chemicals and the process is time-consuming. It is not sustainable for a long term. Our objective is not to use chemicals in extracting keratin, but to use thermal hydrolysis as an alternative process, thus reducing the production cost and environmental impacts of the current extraction processes. Extracted keratin hydrolysates will be recovered by our anti-fouling ultrafiltration system. In particular, we will attempt to preserve the cystine residues in the extracted keratin which has not been reported in the literature. Cystine is the important structural element for forming coiled coils in keratin fibrils. The anticipated results would be significant reduction of undesired animal body waste disposals and also sustainable productions of affordable keratin-based cosmeceuticals and biomedical products, leaving less environmental footprints. In the meamtime, the rendering industry can practice more sustainable operations by recycling undesired animal body parts, contributing to the circular economy, and receiving new revenue stream at the same time.
Animal Health Component
0%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
100%
Applied
0%
Developmental
0%
Goals / Objectives
Keratin, a major component of animal body wastes at rendering plants,is becoming an increasingly important materialfor cosmetics and biomedical applications. However, the current manufacturing processes heavily depend on the use of highly concentrated, toxic chemicals. Our objective is to develop an alternative keratin extraction processwithout any chemical, but water, that is cost-competitive to the current processes. Our targets are to optimize thermal hydrolysis process (THP) conditions to maximize the yield of extracted keratin at a competitive cost. Our goals are as follows:(1) The extracted keratin hydrolysate (KH) with the MW distribution ranging from a few hundred Da to 100 Da.(2) Preserving cystine residues as much as possible, > 2 mole %, by adjusting the THP conditions.(3) Achieving (1) and (2) at a recovery yield of more than 50 % as a ratio of the weight of the extracted KH against the weight of the original keratin in keratinous animal body parts (KABPs).(4) Establishing teh relationship between the THP reaction conditions, the MW distribution, and the cystine residue contents of the KH obtained by THP.(5) Characterize the extracted KHs for cosmeceuticals and biomedical applications. Characterizations include the MW distributions, the amino acid composition, the cystine residue content, the secondary structure of the KH, and the film testing for scafford fabrication including the solubility test and the mechanical test.(6) Opyimize the process parameters for THP, the temperature and the reaction time, to balance the recovery yield and the performance of KH for cosmetic and biomedical applications.(7) Compare with the characteristics of a leading keratin-based hair care products in the market.(8) Analyzed the impurity in the final hydrolysate solution.(9) Characterize the water in the permeate from RO to determine the viability for reuse and the recycling rate of water for THP.(10) Based on the experimental results and comparison to the leading commercial keratin product in the market mentioned above, evaluate the value of the KH produced byour process.
Project Methods
The current commercial keratin extraction processes involve a large volume of toxic chemicals and a lengthy purification process to remove the chemicals which lead to a high production cost and a high environmental footprint. What distinguishes our process from them is using only water as the extraction solvent. There are two steps involved in the extraction of keratin from animal body parts: swelling of the keratin matrix and the breaking the disulfide bonds connecting alpha-helices or beta-sheets of intermediate filaments (IFs). We apply our proprietary two-step thermal hydrolysis process (THP) to achieve the two steps. THP uses subcritical water, at 100 C ~ 360 C, under high pressure. Under such conditions, water can change its characteristics dramatically, behaving as a hydrophobic solvent at high temperatures. This results in a swelling effect in IFs. We apply the first step temperatureto achieve this. Next,a higher temperature is applied to decrease pH, hence increasing the H3O+ ion concentration. The H3O+ ion acts as the oxidizing agent to cleave the disulfide bonds. This is the principle of our new process to extract keratin from animal body parts without using toxic chemicals.The keratin sampleswill be analyzed by a number of characterizations and tests such as SDS-PAGE and MALDI-TOF-Mass for the MW distribution, and the amino acid analysis for the amino acid composition, in particular the cystine residue content, circular dichroism for the secondary structure of KH, and the solubility and the mechanical tests for the scaffold fabrication. The data will be interpreted by combining the molecular characterization and the macroscopic tests such as the mechanical test. By doing that, the structure-property relationship can be established. Molecular modeling may provide insight into the mechanism of hair repair or strengthening scaffold fabrication. In the end, the cost-benefit analysis will be conducted based on the optimized THP conditions.The efforts: Sharing the results with our stakeholder, Pilgrim's Farm with whom we have a partnership. They're interested in installing our process near their poultry rendering facilities. In addition, presenting papers at scientific conferences and publications of articles in peer-reviewed journals are planned.The evaluation: The technical evaluation of the keratin samples is listed above. It's important to note that very few reports are found in the literature, describing the cystine residue content after extraction. If our evaluation shows it's possible to extract keratin with a high cystine content at a lower production cost than the conventional chemical extraction processes, our process will be likely accepted by Pilgrim's. Hence, this project requires close collaboration with Pilgrim's. hence, our milestone is to demonstrate that our process can preserve a high cystine content after extraction at a lower cost than the conventional processes.This requires a detailed cost-benefit analysis. If our process is accepted by Pilgrim's, the impact will be significant, given the scale of their productions throughout the naiton.