Abstract

China is a major tanning country. The tanning industry has been presented with new challenges as carbon reduction targets are set. There are three main types of tanning processes in China: traditional chrome tanning, reverse process tanning and chrome-free tanning. In order to better study the environmental impact assessment of the tanning process, this thesis adopts the eFootprint software and uses the PEF evaluation indexes to carry out a qualitative and quantitative environmental impact assessment of the three tanning processes. The results show that the chromium-free tanning process has a relatively low environmental impact. Conventional chrome tanning has the greatest environmental impact on ET. The reverse chrome tanning process has the highest environmental impact on EP.