WET WHITE – THE NEXT GENERATION

X-Tan® is an innovative metal and aldehyde free organic tanning agent applied in an easy and robust process. Compared with conventional systems, the X-Tan® technology offers substantial advantages for the wet white production in terms of quality and ecology.

The major benefits of this innovative tanning process are high quality of leather and sustainable tannage. One of the key features of the new X-Tan® technology is the virtual whiteness of the leather. Due to a complete absence of a strong color of the intermediate and a good dyeability, brilliant and uniform colors can be achieved. At the same time, the resulting leather has very good physical properties: X-Tan® has shown a very high stability at climate change tests and offers a particularly good tear resistance.

X-Tan® can be used for all types of leather. It is a robust process that combines first-class performance with ecological advantages without using chemicals with critical toxicological properties. X-Tan® is based on the active ingredient polycarbamoyl sulfonate (PCMS).

During tannage PCMS permanently and irreversibly cross-links with the lysine groups of the collagen. This ensures excellent tanning results and a very stable and transportable wet white.

Furthermore, only toxicologically uncritical substances are used or generated. The leather, shavings and effluent contain no reactive tanning materials. Furthermore, no pickling is required. This results in a significant reduction of the salt load in the effluent. Here, X-Tan® gives an important contribution to preserve the natural resource water and significantly reduces the environmental contamination caused by the wet white process.

LANXESS is a leading specialty chemicals company with sales of EUR 8.0 billion in 2014 and about 16,600 employees in 29 countries. The company is currently represented at 52 production sites worldwide. The core business of LANXESS is the development, manufacturing and marketing of plastics, rubber, intermediates and specialty chemicals. LANXESS is a member of the leading sustainability indices Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI World and DJSI Europe) and FTSE4Good.