The theme of this year’s Asian International Leather Science and Technology Conference was “Technology Innovation Promotes Global Leather Industry Reform and Development”, covering topics such as basic leather science research; leather chemicals; clean leather production technology; composite materials and leather waste resource utilization; leather industry environmental protection technology; new progress in leather analysis and testing technology; leather enterprise management and sustainable development; leather intelligent manufacturing; fashion leather products and design innovation and other aspects.

 

LASRA’s Dr Prabakar presented, ‘New insights into chrome tanning: When structure meets protein chemistry.’ Using molecular level techniques such as SAXS (x-ray scattering), SANS (neutron scattering) and proteomics. Dr Prabakar and his team have studied the interactions of chrome with collagen. Aspects such as hydrothermal stability, the role of solvents, natural crosslinks, masking and the importance of bound water were discussed.

 

Dr Prabakar was accompanied by Young International Scientist, Yi Zhang, a graduate from Fudan University in Shanghai, who now works as part of Lasra’s Collagen Materials Group. He will be presented with the €1,500 research prize  at the XXXV IULTCS international congress in Dresden, Germany next year. Zhang is also aiming to start his PhD next year studying collagen molecules.

Pictured, Sujay Prabakar, Professor Bi Shi, Director of the National Engineering Laboratory for Clean Technology of Leather Manufacture at Sichuan University, and Yi Zhang