Vegetable leather

The apphcation of vegetable tanning materials has an additive effect on the leather. The more vegetable tannins appHed the more the leather becomes like vegetable-tanned leather. The color is changed, the fullness of feel increases, and the leather can be worked and embossed like vegetable leather. 

In retanning, vegetable tannins may be used in conjunction with or may be entirely replaced by synthetic tanning agents called syntans. The syntans and other specialty chemicals allow the creation of leathers not possible using vegetable tannins alone. 

The si2e of the vegetable tanning molecules and the coUoidal nature of the system result in the fixation in the hide of filling materials. The filling action is essentially an impregnation of the hide to form a dense firm leather. These properties are gready desired in sole and mechanical leathers. 

The chrome tanning is one step in a compHcated series of leather operations leading from the raw hide to the finished products. Chrome tanning is the most important tannage for all hides except heavy catde hides, which are usually vegetable tanned. In heavy shoe uppers and soles, a chrome tanned leather is frequently given a vegetable retan to produce chrome retan leather. 

Liritan A leather tanning process, introduced in 1960 and now widely used worldwide. The leather is first pickled in a solution of sodium hexametaphosphate and then soaked in baths of various vegetable products. 

In the development of the protein-fatty acid condensates it was possible to combine the renewable resources fatty acids (from vegetable oil) and protein, which can be obtained from both animal waste (leather) as well as from many plants, to construct a surfactant structure with a hydrophobic (fatty acid) and a hydrophilic (protein) part (Fig. 4.12). This was carried out by reacting protein hydrolysate with fatty acid chloride under Schotten-Baumann conditions using water as solvent. Products are obtained that have an excellent skin compatibility and, additionally, a good cleaning effect (particularly on the skin) and, in combination with other surfactants, lead to an increase in performance. For instance, even small additions of the acylated protein hydrolysate improve the skin compatibility. An... 

---