The purpose of this project is to develop a liquid carbon dioxide-based process for the manufacturing of leather. Current practices use large amounts of water as the solvent leading to excessive amounts of wastewater. The cleanup of this wastewater generates the largest cost for the leather producers. In addition because the water diffuses very slowly, the tanning process is quite lengthy. Carbon dioxide thus has several advantages as a solvent over the traditional water solvent. It has higher diffusivities than water and should allow for faster leather production with less waste.

Using liquid carbon dioxide for waterproofing and dyeing of leather show the greatest probability of success and is where the work is currently focused. Commercial waterproofing agents fall into five classes: fluorocarbons, silicones, waxes, aqueous-based oils, and fluoropolymers. Work thus far has shown that examples from each of these classes are soluble in super-critical carbon dioxide. The agents are still being investigated to determine their solubility in liquid carbon dioxide. The sorption of these substances onto leather is also being examined. This will relate to future work where liquid carbon dioxide may potentially be used in the degreasing, retanning, deliming and tanning steps of leather production