Studies on development of Stimuli responsive leathers

Abstract

Viscoelasticity and porosity make leather a natural choice for various applications such as footwear, bags, jackets, etc. One of the natural functions of skin namely ability to respond to stimuli is lost when the skin is flayed and processed into leather. In order to regain the stimuli responsive properties, leather can be treated with various smart materials such as Phase Changing Materials (PCM), thermoresponsive acrylic polymers and thermochromic pigments to impart the desired properties in leather. Thus, in the present study thermoresponsive synthetic tanning agents (syntans) and thermochromic pigments have been developed for making stimuli responsive leathers. The objective of the study is to impart thermal comfort to stabilized leather through synthesized thermoresponsive syntans and the colour change behavior of thermochromic pigments at different temperatures on leather surfaces. newlineThermoresponsive syntans have been synthesized by encapsulation of PCMs such as n-octadecane and n-icosane in different ratio with phenol formaldehyde resin (PF) (n-octadecane (O) (100%) [PF1], n-icosane (I) (100%) [PF2], O+I (50:50) [PF3], O+I (25:75) [PF4] and O+I (75:25) [PF5]) and melamine formaldehyde resin (MF) such as (n-octadecane (O) (100%) [MF1], n-icosane (I) (100%) [MF2], O+I (50:50) [MF3], O+I (25:75) [MF4] and O+I (75:25) [MF5]), also PCM eutectics were studied. The thermoresponsive syntans (PF1, PF2, PF3, PF4 and PF5; MF1, MF2, MF3, MF4 and MF5) were characterized using Particle size analyzer, Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Fourier Transform-Infrared Spectrophotometer (FT-IR) and Differential Scanning Calorimeter (DSC). The leathers were treated with thermoresponsive syntans (PF1, PF2, PF3, PF4 and PF5; MF1, MF2, MF3, MF4 and MF5) and confirmed using Infrared thermal imaging of leathers and Scanning electron microscopy. newline