Fraunhofer Technology Experience

Leather is a high performance, high quality and natural material. It has unique properties, from high resilience, protection against water, the capacity to hold liquid from the inside or a high customer acceptance. The negative aspect of leather is its production, characterised by low efficiency regarding chemical usage. This is critical regarding sustainability, environmental friendly processing and cost efficiency.

Fraunhofer UMSICHT developed the CLEANTAN® process, making it possible to tan leather with compressed CO2, using chromium as tanning agent without having waste water. The new process thus significantly reduces the burden on the environment without influencing the quality of the leather: the leather tanned by CLEANTAN® process remains of equal, high quality.

CLEANTAN® is easy to integrate in running tanneries of small and large scale, and the return-on-investment can be realised within 2 years. Using the CLEANTAN® technology can help save and even expand the tanning industry in Europe, for high quality leather production for shoes, automotive interiors, furniture and clothing, saving jobs and companies.

In 2017, the CLEANTAN® process was awarded the Innovation Award of the European Association of Research and Technology Organisations EARTO.

• https://www.cleantan-fraunhofer.de/

Program

• 12.30 Registration and networking lunch
• 13.00 Welcome
  Mathias Rauch, Director Fraunhofer EU-Office Brussels
• 13.05 Keynote
  Pavel Misiga, Head of Unit »Eco-Innovation«, Directorate General for Research and Innovation, European Commission
• 13.20 Presentation and Technology Experience
  Dr. Manfred Renner, Division Director Products, Fraunhofer Institute for Environmental, Safety, and Energy Technology UMSICHT
• 13.50 Dessert and Demonstration

The Fraunhofer Brussels office will provide the presentations held on request.

Contact

Dr.-Ing. Manfred Renner
Fraunhofer Institute for Environmental, Safety, and Energy Technology UMSICHT
Osterfelder Straße 346047 Oberhausen, Germany
Phone +49 208 8598-1411

Location

Brussels
Fraunhofer EU Office Brussels
94, Rue Royale