Reactional Ultrasonic Systems And Microwave Irradiation For Pretreatment Of Agro-Industrial Waste To Increase Enzymatic Activity

Abstract Keratinous residues are generated in large quantities in industrial processes and because of this they are difficult to manage because the presence of keratin. Keratinases are emerging as promising alternatives in technological processes. The objective of this work was to determine the potential of pretreatment of agro-industrial residues using an ultrasonic probe, and to evaluate activity enhancement strategies by analyzing the behavior of enzymatic activity of keratinases exposed to various reaction systems as well as to enzymatic concentration. We tested the application of enzymatic extracts in the degradation of keratinous residues. Submerged fermentation was performed with swine hair pretreated with and without ultrasonic probe. The enzymatic extracts were exposed to reaction systems and the enzymatic concentration technique to measure the increments of enzymatic activity. We found that the ultrasonic probe increased reaction rates, enabling higher enzyme production in shorter time periods. The ultrasonic probe reached 38.4% of relative activity and the enzyme concentration, increased the enzymatic activity in 53.5%. We observed potential degradation of chicken feathers with homemade enzyme extracts. Taken together, our findings suggest that the results obtained in this work are promising, despite the fact that the data in this area are scarce.