Quality evaluation of leathers produced by selected vegetable tanning materials from Laikipia County, Kenya

Abstract

Due to high cost and unavailability of commercial mimosa in some parts of Kenya, there is a continued research on discovering cheap and locally available tanning agents for use in leather production. The quality of leathers produced using various vegetable tanning materials from plants locally growing in Laikipia County was evaluated and compared with standard mimosa produced leathers. The leathers were produced using vegetable tanning materials from Acacia nilotica, Acacia xanthophloea and Hagenia abyssinica plants and standard mimosa. The physical properties of leathers were determined using standard IUP methods which include: tearing strength, tensile strength, flexing endurance, shrinkage temperature, grain crack and grain burst tests. The quality of leathers tanned with these vegetable tanning materials were comparable to those tanned with commercial mimosa and all of them had more than the minimum set standards such as tearing strength 20 N, tensile strength 12 N/mm2, flexing endurance at 100,000 flexes, shrinkage temperature