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Modified jatropha oil for making chamois leather

N.Vedaraman, Rajasekaran Muralidharan, V.John Sundar, K.C.Velappan, C.Muralidharan

Fish oil is extensively used in food, pharmaceutical industries and in general it is expensive, but low cost fish oil is used in leather industry for Chamois leathersmanufacture. Oils in general, whether it is vegetable oil or marine oil, have higher viscosity and hence it takes longer time for penetration into the skin during oil tanning. In-addition, a significant amount is wasted in the drumduring processing due to high viscosity of oils. Jatropha oil, is non-edible oil that is used for making soap, bio-fuel etc. is relatively cheap compared to fish oil. Therefore, in this study jatropha oil was trans-esterified using methanol and sulphuric acid to obtain jatropha oil methyl ester which is low in viscosity and this product is used for making chamois leather. This leather was tested for different properties such as water absorption and its strength. The experimental results show that the leathers made using jatropha oil methyl ester has similar properties that of conventional chamois leather and jatropha oil methyl ester could be a substitute to raw fish oil.