Patents
Disclosed herein is a process for leather making using plant material, which may be hydrolysable tannin/condensed tannin/natural dye bearing plant. It essentially relates to simultaneous solid-liquid extraction of active ingredients of plant materials such as tannins, poly phenols, natural dyes etc. as well as treatment of such extracts in leather processing such as vegetable tanning, retanning, leather dyeing etc. in a conventional leather process vessels such as drum, paddle, pit etc. under static or dynamic conditions at a faster rate even dispensing with heating devices at ambient room temperature conditions. This process also offers better penetration/diffusion of tanning agents (tannins, dyes etc) in the skin/hide/leather: matrix. Eco-friendly as tanning/dyeing is based on natural products and application of natural tannins/dyes as fresh extracts instantaneously. This process not only provides better extraction efficiency and better diffusion and exhaustion of extracts in leather and also obviates the conventional method for separate extraction of vegetable tannins/dyes and storage and need for proprietary chemicals in order to get desired effect in leather and avoidance of wastage through storage degradation if any through such methods.