Alternatives to Salt Curing Techniques - A Review

339-348The raw hides and skins are flayed from the animal and processed further to manufacture leather. As the main constituent of the raw skins and hides is protein, they are much susceptible for bacterial degradation. Thus, it is essential to preserve the protein matrix and also to arrest microbial attack temporarily. Several chemical, biocidal and physical methods have been advocated and adopted, preservation using salt remains the popular curing technique worldwide due to ease, cost-effectiveness and the quality of the finished leather produced. The skins/hides preserved with salt (40-50 per cent, green weight basis) generate huge amount of pollution in the form of total dissolved solids (TDS) and chlorides (enduring leather processing. A great deal of research is being done worldwide in search of a salt-free, alternative curing systems. An attempt has been made to review various alternative curing techniques and their merits and demerits have been described