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Research Project: Improving the Quality of Animal Hides, Reducing Environmental Impacts of Hide Production, and Developing Value-Added Products from Wool

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Title: Development and characterization of genipin cross-linked gelatin based composites incorporated with vegetable-tanned collagen fiber (VCF)

Author
item LIU, JIE - Zhengzhou University
item Liu, Cheng Kung

Submitted to: American Leather Chemists Association Meeting
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 4/5/2017
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Collagen fibers obtained from solid fibrous wastes generated in tannery have a high potential of being used in developing green composites. Earlier studies in our laboratory demonstrated that nonwoven composites can be derived from collagen fiber network using paper-making technology. The purpose of this work was to fabricate green composites based on gelatin and vegetable-tanned collagen fibers (VCF), using a non-toxic and naturally occurring compound, genipin, as cross-linking agent. VCF were obtained from split that had been tanned with vegetable tannins by mechanical milling technique. The VCF content in the networks of gelatin was varied from 10 to 40% (w/w, dry matrix). The structure, mechanical properties and water resistance of the composite films were investigated by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, mechanical testing and swelling measurement, respectively. The results from those studies revealed that VCF and gelatin could mix with each other homogeneously under alkaline condition and the mechanical properties of the films at wet state were improved significantly over that of pure gelatin film. In addition, the composite films also showed higher water resistance than the native gelatin film. FTIR analysis confirmed the molecular interactions between gelatin and VCF and the formation of cross-links between primary amine groups on gelatin and VCF. Our results indicate that VCF can be useful to develop new green composites providing better properties than the original biopolymer matrix. The genipin cross-linked gelatin/VCF composite film could be a promising candidate for the biomedical and packaging applications.