Cleaner Chrome Tanning: Technology of low-chrome tanning without salt, pickling and short procedure

Content: Tannery effluent with high salinity and chromium have a serious environmental impact. The traditional chrome tannage that involved the use of sodium chloride, acid and chromium is one of the main origins of salt and chromium pollution. In this study, a non-pickling, low-chrome tanning technology was developed. The novel Chrome-free agent SL can be directly employed to tan bated cattle pelts and the wet white was obtained. Then the shaved wet white was pre-treated by Poly-carboxylate auxiliary agent and tanned by chrome powder. It was tested that the shrinkage temperature of the wet white, the initial pH of chrome tanning, the consumption of chrome powder, the shrinkage temperature of the chrome-tanned leather, the content of Cr2O3 in effluent, the absorption of chromium and the other properties of the chrome-tanned leather. It was found that the shrinkage temperature of the wet white tanned by SL reached over 80oC, the optimal consumption of Poly-carboxylate auxiliary agent was 2wt% based on the weight of the shaved wet white, the better low-chrome tanning conditions were that the wet white was tanned by 4wt% chromium powder for 150～180min at room temperature when the initial pH value was 3.5. The next processes were same as traditional chrome tannage. Meanwhile, the shrinkage temperature of the leather tanned by the low-chrome tannage reached more than 95oC, the absorption of chromium was 96%, the content of Cr2O3 in the effluent was under 200mg/L. For the low-chrome tanned leather, the absorption of dyestuff, fat-liquor reached 99.5%, 82.5% respectively. Compared with the traditional chrome tanned process, not only the conventional pickling process was eliminated, the process was been shorten and reduce the pollution of sodium chloride, but it can reduce 50% of the consumption of Chrome powder, improve the absorption of chromium and can reduce content of Cr2O3 in effluent. Take-Away: 1. LUO JIAN-XUN, LI JING, LIAO XUE-PIN,etc.Cleaner Chrome Tanning – A Non-Pickling Process Using an Aliphatic Aldehyde as Pre-tanning Agent. J. Soc. Leather. Technol.Chem. 2012,96 (1):21-26. 2.LUO JIAN-XUN,FENG YANJUAN.Cleaner Processing of Bovine Wet-white: Synthesis and Application of a Novel Chrome-free Tanning Agent Based on an Amphoteric Organic Compound. J. Soc. Leather. Technol.Chem. 2015,99 (4):190-195. 3.XU JIA-LI, LUO JIAN-XUN.Synthesis and application of a polycarboxylate auxiliary agent. China Leather.2017,46(3):35-41