Description
The project aims at developing a process substantially reducing the amount of water used to produce leather. At the moment, tanneries have to be located in places where water is abundant. This project sets out to eradicate all such water constraints, leaving tanneries free to be located almost anywhere. The water used is polluted with chemicals and full recycling of water requires high investment and energy costs. This project focuses on substituting the water used for all stages of the tanning process with an organic solvent called super-critical CO2, inexpensive, non-toxic and naturally occurring. With this project the project promoter will develop a super-critical CO2 machine to undertake processes of dry cleaning, tanning, dyeing and finishing applications. The results of this technology will contribute to limit water pollution and reducing carbon emissions into the atmosphere. The Icelandic partner Saudaskin Ehf contributes in the testing of the technology.
Summary of project results
The Project is designed in order to decrease water consumption in the skin processing industry and to improve the quality of the final products. The sustainability of the results of the project is ensured as the company is planning to invest in two supercritical C02 reactors and, in the medium term, in the construction of other equipment for exploitation on the premises of other tanneries following a rental system. La Doma has developed a completely new prototype, which allows the application of CO2 as a supercritical fluid, which will provide a great competitive advantage to the company within the global market. To do so, it has constructed and carried out tests on a machine that integrates all the operations needed to transform a raw or pickled sheep skin to a fully finished skin of a unique quality, developing continuous degreasing, tanning and dye, even with the possibility of special finishes. The objectives and expected results have been fully met.
Summary of bilateral results
The project itself has successfully developed a new way of enhancing the wool and the suede of the Icelandic skins. The cooperation with our partner, Saudskinn, has showed that rawskin warehouses have to work together with tanneries in order to achieve high quality leather made end products. The development has been of reversible Double Face jackets. These samples were made by some of our end customers in Italy and are being exposed around, and already seem that will make an exclusive trend into the market these days. The fineness of the Icelandic wool, its shine, and a firmer suede, have made these jackets look really much better than before. Our partner has carefully selected the skins for these Double Face article; the ones with a denser and finer wool, no yellow and only white wools, in a size range and no ribby skins. On the other side we are also working on the development of reversible Nappa articles with the Norwegian lambskins, which are sheared.