Production of Asphaltene Binders from Solid Waste Generated in Leather Industry | Original Article

ABSTRACT:

India is one of the major leather producers and nearly 0.75 million tons of raw hides/skins are processed annually. Conversion of 1 ton of rawhide/skin into leather generates nearly 200 – 300 Kgs. of solid waste and rest of the material is converted into leather. Some of the solid wastes such as raw hide/skin trimmings, fleshings, chrome shavings, leather trimmings find uses in other industries, however, waste like buffing dust do not find any use. As they are fine particles and also contain chromium, current practice of dumping in vacant site causes severe health and environmental problems. The obnoxious gases such as oxides of sulphur, ammonia and other volatile organic compounds are emitted from tannery buffing dust during the thermal decomposition. In the present work, an attempt has been made to make leather waste into modified bitumen a pavement material through pyrolysis followed by solidification/stabilization process. The pyrolysed tannery buffing dust was characterized by SEM, FTIR, TGA, and CHNS analyzer. The pyrolysed TBD was effectively solidified/stabilized using aged bitumen. Pyrolysed solid tannery waste is made into modified bitumen and analysed for its rheological characteristics. The leachability of the stabilization of Cr (III) in the solidified matrix was confirmed through TCLP method. Thus, this study illustrates the recycling of buffing dust, a problematic waste in leather making to a societally useful material for road construction.