At the international Footwear Leather Conference in Hong Kong on March 27, Dr Dietrich Tegtmeyer, Head of Product Development & Application in the Leather Business Unit at LANXESS, will be giving a presentation in the Sourcing & Technology section. In addition to providing a brief overview of LANXESS’ range of products for the shoe upper leather industry, he will be talking in particular about the technical and ecological advantages of polymer retanning materials.

‘In these days of increasing environmental awareness and growing demands on quality, it is becoming more and more difficult to produce leather that meets all the customers’ requirements’, says Tegtmeyer. ‘Our polymer retanning materials and softening agents have an excellent ecological profile and give impressive fastness properties. If the right products are selected, the load on the tannery effluent can be reduced significantly and a wide range of technical properties of the treated leather can be obtained’, he adds.

The workshop will be attended by manufacturers, tanners and finishers of shoe leather as well as suppliers of machinery and auxiliaries for this sector. The one-day event kicks off this year’s Asia Pacific Leather Fair (APLF), which takes place in Hong Kong from March 28-31.

Dr Dietrich Tegtmeyer, born in Leverkusen on January 10, 1960, joined Bayer AG in 1989 after obtaining a doctorate in chemistry. In the course of his career with the company, he was head of the pilot plant for membrane technology, an assistant to the management of the Dyestuffs Business Group, R Director for organic pigments in the United States from 1996 to 1999, and R Manager for the Paper, Textiles, InkJet and Leather Business Units from 1999 to 2002. In 2002, he was appointed Head of Marketing/Sales in LANXESS’ Leather Business Unit. Since October 1, 2005, he has been responsible for the Product Development & Application section in the Leather Business Unit.

This organisational unit offers quick and efficient service to the customer and links up the business unit’s global development activities. By bringing together the chemical know-how of a research and development department and experience in technical marketing, it facilitates the development of new products and optimised technologies for leather production. ‘The close cooperation between the Applications Development department and chemical experts enables us to get to the root of technical problems, and to test new developments under service conditions and introduce them in our customers’ plants within a short time’, stresses Tegtmeyer.

The footwear leather conference is co-organised by Leather International magazine and BLC Leather Technology Centre. Click on the link on our homepage for more information.