Raw material for leather industry is from the meat industry, as they

are by product. They get the raw material from slaughter house.
We mainly get sheep, goat and cow leather in India.
 Smaller animal leather called skins
 Larger animal leather is called hides
Why are hides and skin putrefied if they are not tanned?
Heights and skins contain lots of water, around 65 percent. With
water, there is chance of decaying. Moisture causes decomposing.
1st step- have to stop putrefaction, tanning stops decomposing
Putrefiable hides and skins are converted in to non-putrefiable hides
and skins by tanning. It’s a permanent process, not reversable.
Where is the tanning process conducted? Tannery place where the
tanning process is conducted!
Once the animal is slaughtered, the tanning process should be done
in 6 to 10 hours, or the putrefaction will start. The raw material is
available across the country but tannery is available only is specific
places of the country.
As the tannery is available in everywhere, how do you process?
1st dehydrate the skin, reducing the water content will reduce the
decaying process for some time.
Every town there is s agent who collects the skins and hides, he adds
salt (curing process) and stores in the warehouse, and supplies the
temporary preserved hides and skin to the tannery. If the warehouse
is far from the tannery, they’ll collect a larger volume to cover the
transportation cost. After curing process, the hides and skins can be
stored for 30 to 50 days. Curing is temporary process to stop
putrefaction unlike the tanning process.
Livestock population of cow, goat, sheep in India.
2019 population Increased % over
2012 population
Cow 193.46 1.3 %
Female cow 145.91 18.6%
adult
Goat 148.88 10.1%
Sheep 74.26 14.1%
Number in millions, source: national dairy development board.
Rearing livestock is one significant economic activity in rural areas of
the country which contributes to the national economy.
Livestock census started in the year 1919, the 20th census was
conducted between 2019 oct-sept. The census was breed-wise, with
the animal’s age and gender.
distribution of
livestock
population

http://dadf.gov.in/sites/default/filess/20th%20Livestock%20census-2019%20All%20India
%20Report.pdf
curing process, in the tannery after receiving the preserved the hides
and skins.
Process in tannery:
 First desalting (removing the salt added),
 Sorting process: sort the hides and skins based on different
heights.
Before tanning we have rehydrated the hides and skins, because we
need the hides and skins in the original state.
 Soaking: hydration process, opp of curing.
 Flaying: removing the hides or skins from the slaughtered
animal
In raw hides and skins, we can see hair. We have to remove the hair.
The next process after soaking is liming, liming is a process to remove
the hair and open fibers. Lime and sodium sulfide is used in removing
hair. After liming process, we call it pelt.
There are various tanning process, but we in india we do mainly two
types of tanning.
Chrome tanning- mineral tanning, cheaper, less time consuming,
more durable.
Vegetable tanning- uses barks, leaves, nuts as a tanning material

pH- 7 neutral
pH<7 acidic
pH>7 alkaline
pH required for chrome tanning is 2.8, the chrome will penetrate into
the fibers at the pH of 2.8.
pH of hides and skins after flaying, neutral
pH after curing process, around 8
pH after liming process, 11-12 because lime is a strong alkaline.
2.8 pH for chrome tanning

Process after liming is de-liming, its basically removing the lime.

Ammonium sulfate is used in de-liming, the raw material is called
pelt and not hides and skin. After de-liming the pH is around 8.
Even after liming process we can still notice hair roots. After de-
liming, batting process is to remove the hair roots and pigments,
100% removal of hair along with roots.
Next is chrome tanning and we need pH 2.8, so another process
pickling is used to reduce the pH from 8 to 2.8.
To bring down the pH, they HCl usually.
After pH 2.8, chrome tanning, chromium sulfate (BCS) is added and
chrome is added to the fibers. Once the chrome is penetrated into
the fibers, we fix the chrome into the fibers, so we need to increase
the pH.
To increase the pH: Basification is done to increase the pH to 3.8 by
using sodium bicarbonate.
After chrome tanning we call the raw material as wetblue. That
means tanning is over.