Research Trend and Product Development Potential of Non-animal Leather

Hazardous substances and wastes generated during the tanning process in the animal leather production are adversely affecting the environment, and the amount of waste generated is increasing as the size of the leather industry increases. Recently, non-animal leather is attracting attention as a leather that will replace animal leather. As for non-animal leather, synthetic leather such as polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and polyurethane (PU) has been commercialized. Recently, studies have been conducted to further enhance existing characteristics or to give additional characteristics by using existing polyvinyl chloride and polyurethane. Synthetic resin-based leather is similar to the characteristics of animal leather and has the advantage of being inexpensive, but it has a disadvantage of generating harmful substances during the manufacturing process, so researches to replace synthetic resin with biomass are currently underway. Among non-animal leathers, vegan leather produced by applying plant and culture technology is attracting attention. The raw material of plant-based vegan leather is pineapple, cactus, and grape marc, and the raw material of vegan leather using culture technology is mushroom. Compared with animal leather, mechanical strength and thermal properties are still insufficient, but recent research results are similar in characteristics to animal leather, and non-animal leathers using biomass have biodegradable and eco-friendly characteristics, so non-animal leather is more competitive than animal leather and the possibility of commercialization is increasing.