Ammonia free deliming process in leather industry based on eco-benign products

Abstract

<span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family: " times="" new="" roman","serif";mso-fareast-font-family:"times="" roman";mso-bidi-font-family:="" mangal;mso-ansi-language:en-gb;mso-fareast-language:en-us;mso-bidi-language:="" hi"="" lang="EN-GB">Deliming is one of the most important unit operations in leather processing. Conventional deliming process employs ammonium salts which generates considerable amount of ammonia during the process, making tannery environment unhealthy. Therefore ammonia free deliming process is necessary in view of environmental concern. Even though ammonia free alternate deliming processes have been studied earlier, they have not yet provided commercial viability so for. Hence in this paper, ammonia free deliming process based on eco-benign natural products as developed by CSIR-CLRI has been presented. Studies involve analyzing their efficiency, process parameters, quality of leather produced and to develop a viable ammonia free deliming system. The results indicate that complete deliming could be achieved using this product. Physical testing results indicate that strength properties are on par with control process and pass minimum test requirements for shoe upper leather. Organoleptic properties and overall assessments indicate that leathers delimed with CSIR-CLRI AFD are on par with that of conventional leathers. Thus, CSIR-CLRI based AFD could provide alternative system as ammonia free deliming process, which is of great environmental and safety concern.</span>