Enzymatic processes for animal hide/skin collagen fiber purification processing: Recent progress, challenges and recommendations.

Collagen fiber purification is the most important pretreatment process in the recycling of animal hide/skin, by-products of meat production, and can be utilized to produce value-added materials. Traditional animal hide/skin resource utilization technologies face serious challenges in the aspect of production efficiency and environmental sustainability. Enzymatic collagen fiber purification processing is thought to be one of the most promising technologies that can minimize the use of chemicals and energy, reduce CO₂-eq emissions, and achieve sustainable development of animal hide/skin reutilization. However, enzymatic processes have not been well accepted for industrial-scale applications in factories so far. In this review, recent progress and challenges of enzymatic collagen fiber purification processing were comprehensively overviewed in the aspect of the key mechanisms and technologies of enzyme application. Recommendations for the direction of enzyme selection and development were put forward, which is expected to pave the way for the industrial-scale application of enzymes in animal hide/skin collagen fiber purification processing.