Leather chemicals manufacturer Stahl has announced a new partnership with Proviera, a provider of biotech-based products for soaking, degreasing, wetting back, dyeing and finishing hides.
US-based life sciences company SCD Probiotics began to present Proviera as a new spin-off division in 2014. It said tanners that were early adopters of its products, which are based on the action of beneficial microbes, reported considerable savings in the amount of water and chemicals they need to use to make leather, as well as reduced chemical oxygen demand (COD) and biological oxygen demand (BOD) in their wastewater treatment plants. Some even reported improvements in the quality of their finished leather.
Now Stahl has obtained the rights to distribute Proviera’s Probiotics for Leather range and has described the products as “a unique biotech alternative to existing chemicals and processing techniques used in the leather industry” that will enable tanners to produce high-quality leather while simultaneously reducing the effluent load significantly.
On making the announcement Stahl chief executive, Huub van Beijeren, mentioned that one of his company’s main reasons for setting up the new partnership is that sustainability is “a major challenge” for the industry. The company’s director for wet end, Harald Bauer, said the arrangement will help Stahl strengthen its portfolio in beamhouse technology, describing this as the “next milestone in our sustainability journey after the introduction of our Stahl EasyWhite Tan system”.
For his part, Proviera’s vice-president for technology, Juan Carlos Castell, said his company and Stahl “share the same vision of improving the environment and creating a better future using probiotics technology”.
Proviera leather biochemicals are metabolites derived from a proprietary fermentation and formulation technology, using probiotic cultures and natural raw ingredients. To use 100% natural products instead of tradition leather chemicals in the beamhouse will help tanners’ environmental performance, Proviera has argued because nearly 70% of the wastewater of leather production processes comes from the beamhouse.