Abstract:
The ever increasing attention to the environment impact of the leather industry has necessited the
development of plant unharing process as potent alternatives to pollution causing chemicals. In
this study a hair saving and burning is developed for dehairing of skins and hides using plant
unharing preparation, completely eliminating the use sulphide.to evaluate the efficiency of un
haring process comparative studies have been carried out with two controls; a conventional lime
sulphide process and plant unharing process using produced substances from plants comparing
with the lime sulphide commercial dehairing process. The extraction process requires the mortal
press for each plant. The alkanoids, phenol and steroid properties of raw material was
characterized. Then the pH, bomevalue, the softness and pliability property, cost was analyses in
these study. The developed process requires a shorter duration of 4hrs for complete dehairing of
skins and hides and also it avoids the use of sulphides dehairing methods. The potassium /calcium
thioglycolate breaks the disulphid bonds in keratin and the zinc substances in pumpkins can
improve the properties of collagen and skin texture and the antimicrobial nature of endode reduce
the microorganism production and for preservatives these all together are good unharing agents to
substitute sulphide unharing agents. The material are prepared in ratio of 1:1:1/3 Sodom apple
fruit, pumpkin fruit and endode leaves extraction with 260g/l lime at 350c and 4hrs running for
complete hair removal process with good collagen and skin texture and chemical acceptance for
the next operational process with moderate open up of fiber structure in both dermises and corium
after the raw material properties like Alkanoids phenol and steroid properties were studied
(characterized).the active ingredients (derivatives of thioglycolic acid)
Breaks the disulphid bonds by the reaction given bellow.
2HSCCH2CO2H + R-S-S-R HO2CCH2-S-S-CH2CO2H +2RSH.
More over the collagen is not damaged and resulting in a leather of good quality because of the
zinc substance found in pumpkins. The developed process has resulted in remarkable reduction of
effluent load of environmental Excellency and reduces the cost of chemicals by 83,450,000 birr
annually. The research studies conclusively that the leathers produced by plant unharing process
are equivalent to or better than that obtained by sulphide control system. Thus the developed plant
unharing process offers immense potential unharing mode of hides and skins in leather industry
coupled with the environmental excellence.