Abstract:The abundance of organic solid waste throughout the world has become a common issue that needs complete management at every level. Also, the scarcity of fuel and the competition between food and substance as an alternative to a petroleum-based product has become a major problem that needs to be properly handled. An urge to find renewable substances for sustainable development results in a strategy to valorize organic solid waste using solid state fermentation (SSF) and to manage the issue of solid wastes in a green approach. This paper reviews management of solid wastes using SSF, with regard to its current application, advantages and challenges, downstream processing in SSF, economic viewpoint, and future perspectives.

Hair wastes from the tannery industry were assessed for its suitability as substrates for protease production by solid-state fermentation (SSF) using a pilot-batch mode operation and anaerobically digested sludge as co-substrate. Maximum protease activity (52,230±1601 U g(-1) DM) was observed at the 14th day of SSF. Single step purification resulted in 2 fold purification with 74% of recovery by ultrafiltration with 10 kDa cut-off. The recovered enzyme was stable at a temperature of 30°C and pH 11; optimal conditions that were determined by a central composite full factorial experimental design. The enzyme activity was inhibited by phenylmethylsulfonyl fluoride, which indicates that it belongs to serine protease group. The remaining solid material after protease extraction could be easily stabilized to obtain a final good quality compost-like material as the final dynamic respiration index was lower than 1 g O2 kg(-1) OM h(-1). The lyophilized recovered enzymes were a good alternative in the process of cowhides dehairing with respect to the current chemical treatment, avoiding the production of solid wastes and highly polluted wastewaters. In conclusion, the entire process can be considered a low-cost sustainable technology for the dehairing process, closing the organic matter cycle in the form of value added product and a compost-like material from a waste.

Active packaging containing natural extracts is a promising innovation to prolong the shelf life of perishable food. The objective of this work was to develop a bioactive edible film from semi-refined carrageenan (SRC) and glycerol (G) as plasticizer incorporated with natural extract. Five Malaysian herbs were evaluated to determine their total phenolic content (TPC) and antioxidant activities. The Persicaria minor (PM) extract demonstrated the highest TPC (1.629 mg GAE/L sample) and radical scavenging activity evaluated by the radicals 2,2’-azinobis [3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulfonic acid] (27.166 mg TE/L sample), 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (719.89 mg eq. Trolox/L sample) and α,α′-Azodiisobutyramidine dihydrochloride (5.81 mg TE/L sample). Thus, PM extract was selected for active packaging film at concentrations of 0.4, 1.0 and 2.0% and compared with 0.4% Butylatedhydroxianisole in 2% SRC and 0.9% G film formulation. The meat patties were wrapped in the films and stored under refrigeration (4 ± 2 °C) for 14 days. The film with 2% PM exhibited significantly lower lipid deterioration analysed by the thiobarbituric acid reactive substance assay (p < 0.05) and small changes in % metmyoglobin value which indicated the minimum development of brown colour (p < 0.05). Hence, this film can be used as a packaging material to improve meat quality characteristics.

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Alkaline proteases produced from protein-rich waste (hair waste and soya residues) by solid state fermentation (SSF) were immobilised onto functionalized magnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (MNPs) using glutaraldehyde as a crosslinking agent. The covalent binding method had a better immobilisation yield compared to simple adsorption, retaining 93%-96% (459±106 U/mg nanoparticles, 319±34 U/mg nanoparticles) of hair waste and soya residues proteases, respectively after crosslinking with 5% glutaraldehyde for 6 h. However, the adsorption immobilisation yield was 47%-54% after 8 h for both proteases. MNPs and immobilised proteases were characterized using transmission electron microscopy (TEM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) and electron diffraction. Our results indicated successful crosslinking between the proteases and amino-functionalized MNPs. The operational stability (pH and temperature) and storage stability of free and immobilised enzyme were also analysed. Despite the fact that the optimum pH of free and immobilised proteases was identical in the alkaline region, the immobilised proteases reached their optimum condition at higher temperatures (40ºC-60ºC 40 ºC-60 ºC). After 2 months of storage at 4ºC 4 ºC, the immobilised proteases showed good stability, retaining more than 85% of their initial activity. The high magnetic response of MNPs render an ease of separation and reusability, which contributes to the residual activity of both immobilised proteases on MNPs remained retaining more than 60% of their initial values after seven hydrolytic cycles. These results resulted showed the enhancement of the stability of the crosslinking interactions between the proteases and nanoparticles. The immobilised proteases were capable of hydrolysing select selected proteins (casein, oat bran protein isolate, and egg white albumin). However, differences in the degree of hydrolysis were observed, depending on the combination of the protease and type of substrate used.