State of the Art: The leather industry is a highly productive business with over 7 billion euros of yearly income in 2016 only in Europe. A huge number of hides are processed every day with an high consumption of chemicals, water and energy. Moreover, the leather industry produces large amounts of liquid and solid waste since over 85% of the world tanning processes are carried out with chromium salts. Main industrial alternatives are synthetic/natural tannins or aldehydes which gives inferior physical and mechanical performances to tanned leather compare to Chrome, without solving the problem of consumer health and environmental problems.

Solution: Crossing has recently developed and patented an industrial protocol that uses ACLs as alternative tanning agents. It is disruptive technology not only compared to chromium salts, but also to aldehydes and natural/synthetic tannins. ACLs are the first tanning agents that stabilize the skin without leaving any trace! ACL technology is totally metal, formaldehyde and phenol free.
The leather obtained at the end of the various treatments has good/excellent quality for many uses, with comparable performance to chrome-tanned leather. Indipendent Study is available on request.
From an environmental point of view ACLs allow to obtain a totally non-toxic tanned leather and leather scraps can be employed for high value products such as gelatine, pharmaceuticals, nutraceuticals, because the collagen is not contaminated by toxic chemicals.