Abstract
The purpose of this work was to understand the effect of the acoustic cavitation on the alkaline hydrolysis of wool and compare it with a conventional method of steam based alkaline hydrolysis. In acoustic cavitation assisted alkaline hydrolysis, the effect of concentration of solid (wool) and alkali on the properties of wool were also investigated. In conventional alkaline hydrolysis, the experiments were carried in a laboratory scale autoclave at temperature of 120 °C and pressure of 2 bar for 15 min. While acoustic cavitation assisted hydrolysis was carried out using the untreated and treated wool, hydrolyzed samples were characterized using FTIR, TGA and DSC to find out the extent of structural degradation occurring as a result of the treatment. It was observed that both the processes resulted in to a cleavage of disulfide bonds in wool, which cross-link the protein chains and are responsible for the higher stability and lower solubility of wool. However, the acoustic assisted alkaline hydrolysis is an environmentally friendly and less energy intensive process as it was performed at room temperature. The wool hydrolysates produced using acoustic assisted alkaline hydrolysis could find a potential application in agricultural fields such as fertilizer, soil improvement additive, etc.
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