Increasing the competitiveness of the European leather industry
European leather fabrication constitutes approximately one fourth of the world's total leather production industries. Thus, it is considered as one of the most important economic activities with significant number of sales and million of employers. The production cost of the finished leather is mostly pre-defined from the value of the raw material used. For this reason, an improvement in the area of tanned hides may bring considerable savings for the European leather industry. Within this context, the AYILTH project studied the conditions of thermal treatments, such as temperature, heating regimes, treatment duration and drying cycles. The thermal studies combined with mechanical parameters including the intensity of multidirectional stretching forces led to the development of a new treatment procedure. The new thermo-mechanical procedure has the potential to increase the area yield of various types of hides, including bovine, woollen and non-woolen sheepskin leather. More specifically, for bovine hides it was found that the area increase could reach up to 11.7%. In comparison to conventional tanning approach the new treatment method has the potential to produce leathers of similar quality. Furthermore, it is expected that its adoption would make the European tanneries more cost-efficient and productive.
