Sodium Chloride Substitute for Lower Salt Goat Skin Preservation: A Novel Approach

Abstract

Animal skin is the basic raw materials for the tanning industry,which is the by-product of meat industry. The degradation ofskin starts within several hours after the death of animal if it isleft untreated. Application of common salt (sodium chloride,NaCl) is the most popular preservation method of skin; itpreserves the skin by its dehydrating ability and bacteriostaticeffect. The negative effect of sodium chloride is that it generatesa huge amount of pollution in the form of total dissolved solids(TDS) during leather processing. In this present study, aninvestigation was made to preserve goat skin using plant leafpaste. The preservation process was evaluated by monitoringdifferent parameters e.g., shrinkage temperature, hair slip,putrefaction, odor, moisture content, extractable nitrogen, andbacterial count in comparison to the conventional wet saltingmethod. Results indicate that the leaf paste could be used ascuring agents to preserve goat skin. Combination of 10% leafpaste + 10% NaCl could preserve the goat skin for a period of 30days. In this less-salt preservation method, pollution load wasreduced e.g., chlorides and TDS in soaking operation by 45.2%and 49.8%, respectively.