Leather Chemical Trading

Carmine Antonio Intiso offers a global consulting service as well as testing and trading in leather chemicals. He believes that there is a lot of waste in the industry and that a number of unscrupulous people actually profit by promoting such waste. As a result he has spent his entire working life trying to track down those areas where costs can be cut and says he has been able to cut chemical costs from 30% to 8-12% of tannery invoicing, to reduce sole tanning from three months to 36 hours, reduce veg tanning from 72 hours to 36 hours, lime to chrome tanning from 72 hours to 36 hours, and retans from twenty hours to four hours. He has refined beamhouse chemicals amounting to 15,000 different products down to 40 and brought about a dramatic reduction in dyestuffs by introducing concentrated colours which can be used to produce all the shades/colours required. He has applied the same logic to reducing the number of products necessary for finishing. The list of his achievements is very long and includes ways of getting rid of mould, chrome, lime and soap stains. He has devised a tan-retan process to mask pipeness in New Zealand and English sheepskins and developed an antioxidant to prevent fat becoming rancid and the formation of chrome VI. He is always looking for new ways to tan leather ecologically and has even tanned leather with tea. (carmine.intiso@libero.it)