The leather industry produces everything from gloves to furniture and upholstery – quite a wide range of products for one raw material. But irrespective of end product type, the leather needs to be of high quality, which means an optimal level of residual fat and hair removal as well as softness. Basically, it is about maximizing both quality and yield and at the same time reducing manufacturing costs.
Enhancing conventional leather manufacturing processes could be one step in the right direction, but for really significant impacts, it requires “out of the box” thinking. And that is where enzyme technology comes into the picture.
Rethinking fat removal
Some tanners only think of enzymes for bating. However, in the future a new class of enzymes will be used increasingly in tanneries: lipases for the removal of fat. Fat removal is one of the most challenging processes and compared to the conventional methods, lipases provide a lot of benefits:
- The hide will not be damaged if something goes wrong
- They cannot degrade protein
- They increase uniformity and chemical uptake
- They improve filling and dye penetration
Improved lipases
Greasex, the original lipase based product from Novozymes, has been around since the early nineties, but now Novozymes has developed the second generation called Greasex Ultra. The new Greasex Ultra with higher lipase activity is more effective at removing the sebaceous grease, namely the grease at the root of the hair, which is a problem for conventional chemicals. Greasex Ultra is also very effective at hydrolysing the subcutaneous fat, and on the whole Greasex Ultra gives more consistent hydrolysis when used at equivalent concentrations.
This product is one big step in the right direction when it comes to rethinking the leather manufacturing processes in order to make them more economically viable – and more environmentally friendly.