ULTRASOUND could help reduce chemical pollution in India’s leather processing
plants, say researchers in Madras. To make leather soft, toxic chromium-based
chemicals are diffused through the hide’s pores to purge it of hair and fat. But
because the purging chemicals only move slowly through the pores, tannery
operators often boost the concentration to speed up the process. But this
creates more concentrated waste—and more pollution.
But now Paruchuri Gangadhar Rao and his colleagues at the Central Leather
Research Institute in Madras have an answer: a powerful ultrasound device that
generates microbubbles in the chemicals bathing the hide. These bubbles…
