Electron Beam Based Leather Tanning

Tanning of leather for clothing, shoes, and handbags uses potentially harmful chemicals that often run off into local water supplies or require a large carbon footprint to safely recover these pollutants. In regions of the world with significant leather production, this can lead to a significant environmental impact. However recent studies have suggested that leather can instead be tanned using a combination of electron beams in a process inspired by the industrial crosslinking of polymers, to drastically reduce the quantity of wastewater produced in the process; thereby resulting in a reduced environmental impact as well as potential cost savings on wastewater treatment. In this talk, initial studies of leather tanning will be presented as well as accelerator designs for use in leather irradiation.