The Innovation in Ecological Skins

We are in an era in which the reuse or the recycling of products is factor of great importance to our society. Being aware of this reality, we began several years ago the development of the biodegradable leather, which we named FAMU and intends to be a balance between the Fabrication, Ambient, Manufacture and Use.

The different ways of tanning, re-tanning and fat liquoring have been tested and we have concluded that all

these processes have only some evidences of metals, so becoming less pollutant processes. In the initial stage, the final product could technically be considered acceptable, for the results of all physical mechanical lab tests presented normal values.

Because our objective was to obtain commercially accepted leather we went on doing experiments to achieve that goal.

Eventually we succeeded in obtaining a product similar to the chromium leather, which, in our opinion, which give special emphasis to the use of clean products.
constitutes a good alternative to the traditional leather, mainly to countries with strong environmental education

The fact that the product is biodegradable or that it can be incinerated without the danger of causing toxic gases, is of capital importance for the "World Citizen" that is becoming more and more aware of the depletion of natural resources and the saturation of our planet in what concerns substances with long life periods and low degradability, thus becoming more and more important use products that can be easily decayed into simpler elements as soon as their life cycle of the planet.

The biodegradable leather may be considered a future alternative, which should be taken seriously in this world of ours where nothing is created, and everything is transformed. The traditional leather (chromium leather) is tanned with basic sulphate of chromium (chromium III). The

biodegradable leather is tanned with extracted tannins of some trees (such as Mimosa, Acacia, Quebracho, etc.), polymers, and modified glutaric aldehyde.

The chromium leather in contact with existent enzymes in the soil, does not decompose itself because is no longer organic matter. The biodegradable leather keeps the characteristics very similar to the organic leather.

The traditional leather can contain limited amounts or even no limits of products such as iron, arsenic, copper, zinc, lead, cadmium, nickel, cobalt, pesticides or chromium. In the biodegradable leather we only have some evidences of some of those products and by this reason it is especially appropriate to those people who have sensible skin and (or) skin problems.

The greatest advantage of the biodegradable leather is its biodegradability; the complement advantages are to contain only very small quantities of metals, nor they contribute in pollution during manufacture, nor in the end of its life cycle, for besides the best comfort during the use.