Objective Tanning is at the basis of an extensive chain of industries forming a dense tissue of activities all related to the valorisation of animal skins, among them: shoe, clothing, leather goods, furniture, morocco goods, etc. These industrial sectors often constitutes the principal source for the generation of employment at local and regional level. Production of leather has taken a growing importance in the economies of developing countries and Newly Industrialised Countries. Leather production has shifted to these regions were low cost labour is easily available and where environmental factors are considered of a secondary importance, with a consequent reduction of around 1.000 enterprises and 30.000 workers since 1980. Most of this loss has concentrated in Northern European countries, specially in Germany. European tanning industry has reacted changing quantity by quality. EU tanners are adjusting their production to fulfil higher quality standards and the design content in leathers, specialising in some particularly demanding niche markets requiring outstanding technological control of the process or vision of future market trends On the other hand, Western consumer trends towards more natural products is a development which should favour leather against man made materials.Finally the directive Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC) to be applied to new installations from October 1999 and to existing installations from October 2007, needs a RTD effort of the leather tanning sector to which this project will contribute The main industrial and economic objectives can be summarised as follows: . Develop a process based in vegetal principles capable of differentiating European leathers from others using less environmentally friendly principles, thus approaching to the uppers market segment. . Take advantage of the new technologies and recent research done on structure of leather and the chemical structure of vegetable tannins, analysing the commercial feasibility of their industrialisation. . Solve the problem of management of the water containing chromium originated in the process of tanning leather, avoiding the need of special equipment for storing and treating The present project intends to make use of the state of the art technology in chemical analysis of vegetal active principles and in the chemical structure study of leather to achieve results that are completely new, as can be derived from the following studies presented bellow : . State of the art. No substantial progress done in industrial processes since 1945, despite of the fact that new analysis technologies and scientific advance on leather structure study could improve these process in a high degree Exploration in patents. Only two groups of USA patents recovered . EU RTD project. No project on this issue found in CORDIS database. L. Sykes, in the 21st Procter Memorial Lecture (1986), made the following observation Even now with sophisticated separation procedures the composition of commercial vegetable tannins is not completely understood although we have a working hypothesis which is adequate for most purposes. Indeed, it is probable not unfair to say that, in commercial terms, the contribution of the physical chemists' approach... to vegetable tanning systems... has been much greater than that of the organic chemists' elucidation of the molecular structure of vegetable tannins . Although the composition of a few extracts (Sumach, Chines and Aleppo galls) is now well known that of the vast majority of commercially important extracts such as wattle, chestnut, quebracho, valonea, myrobalans cannot yet be defined in suffficient detail in molecular terms. So, ideas developed 40 years ago have remained essentially unchanged in the intervening years, thus reflecting the status of the fundamental chemistry of collagen and the vegetable tannins in this time. It is therefore both timely and important to review these ideas in the light of the discoveries made in the past 45 years period, both in relation to the structure of the vegetable tannins and the force which drive their complexation with other molecular species and alsoagainst the background of the very detailed knowledge which has now emerged concerning the structure of the collagen molecule, collagen fibrils and colagen fibres. Consortium is formed by A SME in chemical sector, Kapp (DE), two tanneries Incusa(ES) and Arius (IT) and a shoe manufacturer, Pikolinos (ES). The RTD team is composed of four organisations UCLM (ES) expert in extraction of natural principles, PFI (DE) in its application in natural tanning, UMH(ES) in recycling processes and CRC (IT) one in general tanning industry.Total budget of the project is 868,48 KECU with a duration of 24 months and a work load of 111 person months. Three countries are present: Spain, Germany and Italy.The research fits the area 1.2.2.M Industrial 8 Materials Technologies, BRITE EURAM Work Programme, aiming to the development of new efficient and environmentally benign production and processing techniques. Fields of science natural scienceschemical sciencesinorganic chemistrytransition metalsengineering and technologymaterials engineeringtextilesnatural sciencesearth and related environmental sciencesenvironmental sciencespollutionagricultural sciencesagriculture, forestry, and fisheriesagriculturehorticulturevegetable growingsocial scienceseconomics and businessbusiness and managementemployment Programme(s) FP4-BRITE/EURAM 3 - Specific research and technological development programme in the field of industrial and materials technologies, 1994-1998 Topic(s) 0102 - Development of clean production technologies Call for proposal Data not available Funding Scheme CRS - Cooperative research contracts Coordinator Industrias del Curtido SA EU contribution No data Address KM2,Ctra. Valencia - Alicante KM2 46460 Valencia - Silla Spain See on map Total cost No data Participants (7) Sort alphabetically Sort by EU Contribution Expand all Collapse all Arius 92 Srl Italy EU contribution No data Address Via degli Artigani 3 56024 Ponte Egola - Pisa See on map Total cost No data Consorzio Recupero Cromo Spa Italy EU contribution No data Address Nuova Francesca 1 56029 Santa Croce sull'Arno See on map Total cost No data Kapp Chemie Gmbh Germany EU contribution No data Address Industriestraße 56357 Miehlen See on map Total cost No data PRUEF- UND FORSCHUNGSINSTITUT PIRMASENS E.V. Germany EU contribution No data Address Marie-Curie-Strasse 19 66953 PIRMASENS See on map Total cost No data Pikolinos International Spain EU contribution No data Address Calle Galileo Galilei 2 03320 Torrellano - Elche See on map Total cost No data Universidad Miguel Hernandez Spain EU contribution No data Address Avda del Ferrocarril S/N 03202 Elche See on map Total cost No data Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha Spain EU contribution No data Address Plaza de la Catedral 2 02071 Albacete See on map Total cost No data
