Footwear firms believe in alternatives to chrome
19/05/2011
Industrias del Curtido SA (Incusa), a Valencia-based tanning company, and footwear brand Fluchos have worked with Inescop on a project to use titanium as an alternative to chrome in the tanning process, and to test the suitability of the leather produced in footwear applications.
The outcome of this exercise is that Incusa is expected to set up a production line to make 1.2 million square-feet of titanium-tanned leather per year. Incusa has registered the trade name Sanotan, under which it will seek to market the leather.
A further aim is to use Sanotan leather to make a range of shoes to show that products manufactured using titanium-tanned material can meet all the requirements of footwear brands. Inescop and the companies involved in the project have said they aim to display the leather and shoes made from it at industry events in the coming months.
In a separate exercise, Inescop says it has worked with tanneries and shoe manufacturers in Spain, including work footwear specialist DIAN, to test the viability of using oxazolidine to tan leather.
On announcing these preliminary findings, Inescop said: “We are conscious of the environmental pressures that the tanning industry is under. At the moment, more than 90% of tanned hides across the world are processed using chrome. Chrome allows the industry to produce finished leathers that are thin, soft and strong enough to meet the needs of modern consumers in shoes, clothing and upholstery.”
It went on to say that chrome-tanning could present problems if the chrome oxidises to chrome VI, and that this was the driving force behind its search for alternative tanning agents. It said its tests so far showed titanium and oxazolidine can produce finished leather of the right quality for commercial use but without any risk of toxicity.
Inescop said its view was that leather tanned with titanium was also more biodegradable than chrome-tanned leather and produced waste that was easier to manage, with fewer contaminants in waste water and in sludge.
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