Facile degradation of chitosan-sodium alginate-chromium (III) gel in relation to leather re-tanning and filling

Natural polysaccharide hydrogel, exemplified by chitosan‑sodium alginate (CS-SA), has been prevailing in adsorption of chromium (III) (Cr(III)) containing contaminant. However, the traditional desorption of CS-SA-Cr(III) to recycle the adsorbent faces the problems including chemical desorbents secondary pollution, resource waste of the terminal CS-SA adsorbents, and tedious work of reusing the desorbed Cr(III). Herein, the adsorption product, CS-SA-Cr(III) gel, was degraded to CS/SA/Cr(III) sol and applied in leather re-tanning and filling processes directly. To achieve this goal, three degradation methods were used to transform the gel to sol. Due to the excellent overall performance of the CS/SA/Cr(III)-HMD4 sol (obtained by the hydrothermal-mechanical degradation method for 4 h (HMD4)), including wide size and distribution range, moderate viscosity (54 ± 3.1 mPa·s), high electronegativity (-38.6 ± 5.8 mV), and good stability, the resultant leather after re-tanning and filling by the sol achieved fascinating properties such as good thermal stability (Ts, 116.8 ± 1.8 °C; Td, 94.2 ± 1.7 °C), mechanical performance (tensile strength, 6.9 ± 0.52 MPa; elongation at break, 95 ± 3.0 %), and superduper thickening rate (31.8 %). Moreover, the mechanism of good re-tanning and filling effects was deciphered. Therefore, this work intends to overcome the limitation of traditional desorption technology and further realizes the high-valued application of the exhausted CS-SA-Cr(III) in leather re-tanning and filling processes.