Abstract

In the post war years considerable rationalisation has taken place in the chrome tanning operation particularly with regard to its integration with the preceding bating and pickling operations. In the past, bating, pickling and chrome tanning have been carried out largely as separate operations involving, in particular, the transfer of skins from one type of equipment to another, thereby tending to involve much longer periods of time than really necessary. Whilst it may be true that certain specialised types of leather must be processed in this way in order to meet stringent quality requirements it is also true that for the production of large volumes of other types of leather, for example, side leather, it is economically attractive and technically acceptable to integrate these operations in order that they may be carried out in sequence in one piece of equipment and without having to handle the skins more than is absolutely necessary. This is, of course, the type of operation which has been established very successfully in America where, according to most reports, it is possible to produce a good quality end-product on a high volume—high productivity basis’. Despite the successful integration of these processes and the consequent saving in process time it is still possible to consider a further worthwhile im provement in the time required to carry out these particular operations if it is possible either to eliminate the bating or the pickling operation or if the time requirement for any of the three processes of bating, pickling and tanning can be considerably shortened. In addition it may be possible to link the elimina tion or shortening of the pickling operation with a less time-consuming basify ing operation which is normally necessary for completion of chrome tannage. * Lecture given to the S.L.T.C. Northern Group. March 31, 1965. as part of Symposium entitled “The Time Factor in Leather Processing”. 232 Bating is a relatively short operation which, for certain types of leather, could not easily be eliminated or time-reduced and since it does not integrate so closely with the chrome tanning operation as do the pickling and basifying operations it will not be considered further in this paper.