Collagen Extraction from Various Waste Bovine Hide Sources

Hide is a by-product of meat production and is mostly used for leather production. Collagen is the main protein in mammalian skin, connective tissue and cartilage and presents an opportunity for value addition to waste hide off-cuttings by extracting collagen. Three different extraction methods were applied to five different hide sources. The hide sources differed with respect to the animal’s age, sex, diet and environment and influenced collagen extractables yield, and therefore the economic benefit of extraction. Acid-solubilisation (AS), acid-enzyme solubilisation (AES1) and modified acid-enzyme solubilisation (AES2) were used to extract collagen from bull, calf, cow, face-pieces and ox-hides. The highest dry collagen content was from cow hides using the AES2 method (75.13%), followed closely by bull hides at 74.45%. On the other hand, the lowest collagen content was from cow hides (3.80%) with the AS extraction method and the AS method proved to be inefficient for collagen extraction from bull, cow, face-piece and ox-hide sources. Analysis concluded that all the samples were of Type I collagen with α, β, and γ chains. Waste bovine hide off-cuttings can be used to extract high value product of collagen. AES2 proved to be the most preferable method of extraction out of the three methods applied and considering leather to collagen revenue, these waste bovine hide off-cuttings could potentially result in substantial revenue.