Turning of Cow Stomach, a Slaughter House By-product into Value-added Products

Abstract

This study investigates to turn the stomach of cow into exotic leather and then leather products that would add value to the end of leather industry. For this purpose, three pieces of cow stomachs are taken to convert into leather through pre-tanning, tanning and post tanning operations i.e. soaking, liming, deliming, bating, pickling, tanning, retanning, dyeing, fatliquoring, finishing etc. Some mechanical operations are also carried out, such as drying and stacking. Several mechanical investigations have been conducted, including tensile strength, stitch tear strength colour rub fastness and shrinkage temperature in order to assess the overall physical properties of prepared leather. Chemical analyses have also been carried out (chromic oxide content, fat content and pH) to find out the quality of leather. It is observed that tensile and stitch tear strengths are much lower than any of the grained upper leather. But the results demonstrate that colour rub fastness is good enough to meet the standard value. Among the different chemical analyses, pH and % of fat content meet the standard value, but chromic oxide content (%) of one sample is below than the standard value of grained upper leather. All these might be due to the prevalence of difference in composition between hide/skin and the stomach of animals. The prepared stomach leather could be used in making of fancy leather goods like key ring, wrist watch belt, hair clip, bracelet etc.