Exploring the feasibility of substituting mimosa tannin for pine bark powder. A LCA perspective

The use of vegetable tannins is a bio-based alternative to chrome tanning. The most used vegetable extracts are Mimosa and Quebracho. To improve the sustainability of the tanning process, a chemically unmodified pine bark could be used as a natural source of tannins. The present study was aimed to e...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Conde Mateos, Mireia, Combalia Cendra, Felip, Baquero Armans, Grau, Ollé i Otero, Lluís, Bacardit i Dalmases, Anna
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2022
País:España
Institución:Varias* (Consorci de Biblioteques Universitáries de Catalunya, Centre de Serveis Científics i Acadèmics de Catalunya)
Repositorio:Recercat. Dipósit de la Recerca de Catalunya
OAI Identifier:oai:recercat.cat:10459.1/73445
Acceso en línea:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.clet.2022.100425
http://hdl.handle.net/10459.1/73445
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Life cycle impact assessment
Global warming potential
Pine bark
Mimosa tannin
Vegetable tanning
Descripción
Sumario:The use of vegetable tannins is a bio-based alternative to chrome tanning. The most used vegetable extracts are Mimosa and Quebracho. To improve the sustainability of the tanning process, a chemically unmodified pine bark could be used as a natural source of tannins. The present study was aimed to evaluate the environmental impact of the use of pine bark powder to obtain vegetable leather through a life cycle assessment. Specifically, the life cycle impact evaluation was performed for both: i) pine bark powder tannin and the atomized mimosa extract production as raw material; and ii) the production process of a tanned leather with pine bark tannin versus a tanned leather with mimosa extract. An eco-friendly and cleaner production method for obtaining pine bark powder was developed. This new production method allows to obtain a reduction in 83% in the 'climate change' impact category. However, when this tannin is applied to obtain a tanned leather, the tanning process shows an increase in all studied impact categories compared with the use of the atomized mimosa extract.