Artificially modified collagen fibril orientation affects leather tear strength

作者：Kelly Susyn J; Wells Hannah C; Sizeland Katie H; Kirby Nigel; Edmonds Richard L; Ryan Tim; Hawley Adrian; Mudie Stephen; Haverkamp Richard G^*

来源：Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture, 2018, 98(9): 3524-3531.

DOI：10.1002/jsfa.8863

• collagen
• fibril
• orientation
• strength
• small-angle X-ray scattering

BACKGROUNDOvine leather has around half the tear strength of bovine leather and is therefore not suitable for high-value applications such as shoes. Tear strength has been correlated with the natural collagen fibril alignment (orientation index, OI). It is hypothesized that it could be possible to artificially increase the OI of the collagen fibrils and that an artificial increase in OI could increase tear strength.
RESULTSOvine skins, after pickling and bating, were strained biaxially during chrome tanning. The strain ranged from 2 to 15% of the initial sample length, either uniformly in both directions by 10% or with 3% in one direction and 15% in the other. Once tanned, the leather tear strengths were measured and the collagen fibril orientation was measured using synchrotron-based small-angle X-ray scattering.
CONCLUSIONThe OI increased as a result of strain during tanning from 0.48 to 0.79 (P=0.001) measured edge-on and the thickness-normalized tear strength increased from 27 to 43N mm(-1) (P<0.001) after leather was strained 10% in two orthogonal directions. This is evidence to support a causal relationship between high OI (measured edge-on), highly influenced by thickness, and tear strength. It also provides a method to produce stronger leather.

• 出版日期2018-7