This year the International Union of Leather Technologists and Scientists will hold their bi-annual congress in southern Brazil. LASRA will be sending two delegates to present and support six papers on new leather science being developed as a direct output from MBIE funded projects headed up by LASRA.
This work is essentially fundamental leather science and includes a presentation on how leather fibres deform and interact during wear resulting in different strengths depending on the properties of the individual collagen fibres. The illustration shows two examples of model leather, one weak (on the left with disorganised fibres) and the other strong (on the right with more aligned fibres). Understanding how the structure of leather relates to its ultimate properties has led to a better understanding of how changes in processing will lead to changes in the final leather product.