Changing the leather industry
Chromium salts are widely used in leather tanning. Usually the tanned wastes are not dangerous to health and are stockpiled in open-air dumps in the form of leather shavings. But acid rain, common across the industrial world, can leach harmless chromium from shavings into groundwater and transform it into deadly chromium that causes liver and bladder cancer.
"Dr Kolomaznik’s unique contribution is in demonstrating that this process could be run on an industrial scale [and in] successfully identifying markets for the protein products.”
Karel Kolomaznik, a Czech professor, has improved a technology that recovers the potentially dangerous chromium for reuse in the tanning cycle, and has shown it can be used on an industrial scale. He is now researching ways to make the tanning process completely waste-free.
Latest Update
Waste not, want not
Extraordinary Czech scientist Karel Kolomaznik is focusing on turning discarded fat into biodiesel
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- Contact Information
Professor Karel Kolomaznik
Tomas Bata University in Zlin
Faculty of Applied Informatics
Nad Stranemi 4511
750 05 Zlin
Czech RepublicTel: +420 576 035 256
kolomaznik@fai.utb.cz kkolomaznik@hotmail.com
