Mathematical model of expenses for collagen hydrolyzate production

In this paper, the mathematical modeling in the area of treatment the leather waste material is presented. Leather industry contributes significantly to the production of several types of waste and pollutes the environment for many decades. A reasonable solution for processing of certain part of tannery wastes, such as shavings, is a hydrolysis reaction. This reaction enables to separate collagen that can be effectively re-utilized in various forms. The attention in the paper is paid to the mathematical model of the main operating expenses for producing a collagen hydrolyzate from leather shavings. The first stage is mathematical description of the real nature of processes - the deterministic model. The modeling is performed for a batch reactor and pilot plant conditions. It is based on physical and chemical processes ongoing in the reactor and other parts of the production system, such as kinetics of the hydrolysis, mass balances, dry matter balances and protein balance in the equilibrium. The goal is to determine optimal time of hydrolysis reaction, optimal mass fraction of decomposed protein and hence the main operating expenses. The obtained results clearly demonstrate the sense of the mathematical modeling and the contribution to the economical evaluation of production process - to acquire collagen hydrolyzate from a waste material.