What are the applications of surfactants in the tanning and fur industry?
Surfactants are indispensable additives. Adding a certain amount of surfactant solvents to detergents can enhance their solubility and detergency, but due to their toxicity, they can cause significant skin irritation. The use of surfactants in large quantities is also potentially harmful to the ecosystem. In order to meet the increasing demand for health care and to ensure the sustainable development of the human living environment, it is imperative to develop surfactants that are as non-toxic and non-polluting as possible to the human body and to the ecological environment.
Surfactants are a large class of organic compounds, their properties are very distinctive, their applications are extremely flexible and wide-ranging, and they have great practical value. Surfactants have been used as emulsifiers, detergents, wetting agents, penetrating agents, foaming agents, solubilizers, dispersants, suspending agents, cement water reducing agents, fabric softeners, leveling agents, color-fixing agents, biocides, catalysts, water repellents, antifouling agents, lubricants, antacid fogging agents, dust-proofing agents, anticorrosive agents, spreading agents, thickening agents, permeable agents, flotation agents, leveling agents, oil-repellents, anticaking agents, deodorizers, antistatics, surface modifiers, and so on. Surfactants are used in daily life and many industrial and agricultural production fields, such as surface modifiers and dozens of functional reagents. In addition to the large number of surfactants used in detergent industry and cosmetic industry, they are also used as auxiliaries or additives in traditional industries such as food, dairy products, paper making, tanning, glass, petroleum, chemical fiber, textile, printing and dyeing, paints, pharmaceuticals, pesticides, film, photography, electroplating, metal processing, mineral processing, new materials, industrial cleaning, construction, and other traditional industries, as well as in the field of high and new technology. Although they are often not the main body of the industrial products, but can play a key role in the production of a variety of products as a finishing touch. Its dosage is not large, but it can play a key role in increasing product variety, reducing consumption, saving energy, improving quality and so on.
The tanning process is quite complex and complicated, from bare hide to leather needs to go through a number of procedures. Before tanning, it is necessary to carry out preparatory work such as water immersion, ash immersion, enzyme softening, acid immersion and de-acidification, degreasing, etc. After tanning, it is also necessary to carry out dyeing, fatliquoring and finishing. All these processes require the use of surfactants as additives to promote the physical and chemical effects and processes of each process, shorten the production cycle, improve the quality of leather and save chemical raw materials.
Fur processing also needs to go through a number of processes, in the soaking, degreasing, softening, tanning, bleaching, dyeing, fatliquor, finishing and other processes also need to use surfactants as additives. Tanning must remove the animal hair, and fur processing requires as much as possible not to damage the original structure of the hair, the use of surfactants can play a good protective effect.
Surfactant in leather production and fur processing in the main role is solubilization, emulsification, wetting, penetration, foaming, defoaming, washing, leveling and color-fixing. In each process, the role of its requirements are different, such as in water immersion, the main requirements of its role in wetting and penetration; degreasing, it is required to play the role of emulsification, wetting and penetration; decontamination, it is required to have a good solubilization; dyeing requires it to have a good diffusion, infiltration and foam; fat, it is required to have a good emulsification performance, and so on.
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