Lanxess responds to demand for wider range of pate - footwearbiz: Lead

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Lanxess responds to demand for wider range of patent leather

19/06/2012
Leather chemicals manufacturer Lanxess has launched a new range of finishing products specifically to allow tanners to extend their patent leather offerings. “Patent leather is a fashion classic, especially for shoes and bags,” the company said at the time of the launch. “However, gone are the days when consumers were satisfied with standard black or white. Now they want bright colours, special effects, or a matt or deep lustre. In addition to mastering these challenges, leather manufacturers today have to satisfy numerous technical requirements, too, as patent leathers are also expected to have good lightfastness, cold flex resistance, heat stability and elasticity.”
 
The Lanxess range of products has Baygen at its core, a patent finish with two-component aromatic and aliphatic polyurethane systems that has been on the market for almost 60 years. Base coats based on Baygen Compact give uniform, elastic films. Acrylic-based Baygen Compact CC2, for example, provides transparent, medium-hard films with good adhesion, especially for full grain leather and small skins. The range also includes general-purpose products such as Baygen Top U 01 and specialties such as Baygen Top MS for use in top coats. The gloss level of the patent finish can be adjusted by varying the mixing ratio of these two grades.

Customised components are available for brilliant white and black lacquers with covering power or for special, thermally resistant formulations. These can be combined with various products from the Baygen Hardener range to obtain standard lacquers or lacquers with particularly high lightfastness or cold flex resistance. The colourless, solvent-based nitrocellulose formulation Isoderm LO 87 and the aqueous polyurethane-acrylic system Bayderm Finish UP-G give effect lacquers.

Bayderm Finish F 2 is an aqueous polyurethane system that makes it possible to produce high-gloss patent leather by roll-coating or spraying rather than curtain-coating process. The resultant lacquer coat is transparent and has high levels of mechanical fastness.

The finishing products for patent leather are rounded off by acrylic blends from the Primal Prebottom range for tightening the grain (impregnation) and by Baygen X-Grade ST, a system specially modified for patent leather for concealing hide defects. The filling effect of all the X-Grade brands is based on a microcapsule technology that was specially developed for use on leather. A wide range of colours and individual effects can be obtained with the anionic Levaderm dyestuffs.

“Patent leather is very much in fashion,” said Bianca Verstegen, head of global product management finishing in the Lanxess Leather business unit at the time of the announcement. “We want to offer products that help tanners meet their customers’ wishes quickly and reliably. So what we need is a range of leather chemicals that has been specially developed for this purpose, are compatible with one another and make it possible to adjust all the desired properties.”

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