Making use of the triacylglycerides extracted from leather fleshings

One of the basic principles of the circular economy is that all by-products should have a second useful life as new raw materials. At present, the by-products obtained during the leather tanning process are recovered and managed so that they can be reused by different sectors. In this regard, Leather Cluster Barcelona wants to deepen its knowledge of the generation of co-products and is taking part in the CORIUM project.

The main objective of this project is to carry out a study to assess whether high-added-value bioproducts and/or biomaterials can be obtained sustainably from biorefinery processes applied to triacylglycerides extracted from leather fleshings.

Specifically, CORIUM proposes exploratory research to recover the triacylglycerides generated during the fleshing stage, since animal fat mainly contains fatty acids (linoleic, myristic, stearic, palmitic and oleic) of great commercial value. These fats will be extracted by means of environmentally clean extraction processes, based on the use of green solvents and advanced extraction techniques. These triacylglycerols will be put forward as an ecological alternative to basic petroleum-derived products such as lubricants, diesel, polymers, paraffins, etc.

This is a collaborative project coordinated by INNOVACC, the Catalan cluster for meat and alternative protein, in which, in addition to Leather Cluster Barcelona, the research group of the Universitat de Lleida, A3 Leather Innovation Center and MITLAB (Mollet Institute of Technology Laboratory), a benchmark research and development laboratory in industrial and food biotechnology, are taking part.

The CORIUM project receives the support and funding of ACCIÓ (the public agency for the competitiveness of Catalan companies, attached to the Department of Enterprise and Labour of the Generalitat de Catalunya), under the 2023 competitiveness-strengthening initiative grants for cluster projects (grants for business competitive strengthening projects).

Leather Cluster Barcelona is an environment of competitive cooperation for promoting cross-cutting, transformative strategic projects with the aim of driving the ecosystem of the Catalan leather sector. The cluster is an entity accredited under the Catalonia Clusters programme and is supported by Acció.