Recent Findings in Acetaldehyde Emission from Leather

Abstract

Acetaldehyde emissions are a significant challenge forautomotive leather producing tanneries. This is especially true tomeet the requirements for the Chinese market. Unlikeformaldehyde, acetaldehyde is not used as a building block oftanning agents or auxiliaries and has rarely been traced inextraction assays in which the detection medium is water.However, it contributes to significant problems in emission testsfor leathers in which the molecules are detected in the air. Untilrecently, few data points on acetaldehyde emissions wereavailable, mostly on finished leather. In this publication, ournew, facile method for the measurement of acetaldehydeemission will be introduced, evaluated, and exemplified withdata across the whole process of leather making, from beamhouse to finished leather. With our new method we could showthat the emissions generally decrease from skin to crust.Biochemical background for the high levels of acetaldehyde inskin will be given. Through the application of suitablescavengers, acetaldehyde emissions could be reducedsignificantly in automotive leathers.