Abstract

Chrome is a serious pollutant in the environment due to its toxicity and the low utilization in chrome tanning. To study the effect of Low Temperature Plasma (LTP) on the absorption of chrome in tanning process, oxygen plasma was used to modify pickled skin. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) was used to observe the surface morphology changes of wet-blue leather due to LTP treatment. The analysis by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) showed that the oxygen content of the pickled skin and the chromium content of the tanned leather increased remarkably. White hide powder (collagen fibre mimic) was modified by LTP and it was shown that the amount of carboxyl and carbonyl groups on the fibre surface increased significantly. The increase in oxygen-containing groups such as carboxyl, carbonyl, thus increased the content of combined chrome. Therefore, LTP will provide a new exploratory method for high-exhaustion chrome tanning technology. As this is a new application opportunities are limited due to the lack of suitable industrial equipment which will need to be developed. The new application is allied to that described in ‘Study of unhairing with LTP’ which was presented at the 7th Asian Conference of Leather Science and Technology.