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Recent Trends in Leather Making: Processes, Problems, and Pathways
Recent Trends in Leather Making: Processes, Problems, and Pathways
Technology
To cite this article: Palanisamy Thanikaivelan , Jonnalagadda Raghava Rao , Balachandran Unni
Nair & Thirumalachari Ramasami (2005) Recent Trends in Leather Making: Processes, Problems,
and Pathways, Critical Reviews in Environmental Science and Technology, 35:1, 37-79, DOI:
10.1080/10643380590521436
Palanisamy Thanikaivelan
Centre for Leather Apparels and Accessories Development, Adyar, Chennai, India
Thirumalachari Ramasami
Central Leather Research Institute, Adyar, Chennai, India
37
38 P. Thanikaivelan et al.
I. INTRODUCTION
A. Leather Industry: A Global Perspective
Leather is a unique commodity that links the rural farmer to the fashion world.
Leather as a natural material offers numerous advantages over synthetics,
namely, aesthetic appeal, feel, texture, and breathability. Major product appli-
cations for leather are leather goods, garments, and footwear. More than 60%
of the leathers produced are being converted to footwear (Taeger, 1996). The
annual global trade in leather sector is estimated as US$70,000,000,000 (ITC,
1999). The United States, Germany, and other European countries remain ma-
jor importers of leather products. Countries such as China, India, Thailand,
and Indonesia dominate leather and leather products exports. The demand
for leather and leather products is on the rise and is independent of supply.
Leather processing has emerged as an important economic activity in
several developing countries that are dependent on agricultural economy. It
has been estimated that about 1.67 × 109 m2 of leather is being made annu-
ally in the world (FAO, 2001). The bulk of the leather production is carried
out in developing economies, partially because of the high labor intensity
of the processes involved in the conversion of hides and skins into leather.
India is a major player in the global leather trade. Leather has assumed im-
portance as an opportunity sector for social development, employment gen-
eration, and export realization. Leather is a thrust area in national planning
for the development of India. The Indian leather industry has evolved over
nearly two centuries. Currently, the overall share of India in the global leather
trade is around 3% (ITC, 1999). There are about 2100 tanneries located in
India, with a processing 0.9 × 106 tons of rawhides and skins (Velappan and
Muralidharan, 2001). Major tannery clusters in India are located in the states
of Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, and Punjab.
A. Pretanning
1. SOAKING
The starting material for leather processing, in most cases, is rawhide or
skin, which had been preserved temporarily by the addition of common
salt. Soaking aims at reversal of cured hides and skins to near the status of
the freshly flayed condition, in terms of dimension and composition. Large
amounts of water and small amounts of preservatives/wetting agents are
used at this stage. The common salt, when removed from the skin during
soaking, constitutes a major source of pollution from tanneries (Ludvik and
Orlita, 1986). Because the dissolved sodium chloride is not easily treated and
removed from wastewater, the discharge of tannery wastewater onto land
leads to significant addition of salinity to the soil (Daniels, 1997). The soak
liquor is characterized by high TDS and chloride content (Ramasami et al.,
1999b). Currently, the problem is tackled by the segregation of soak liquors
for salt recovery through solar evaporation pans. Soak liquor also contains
salt soluble proteins and other organic materials, which contribute marginally
to the BOD and COD load. Through judicious choice of methods, however,
it may be possible to minimize the BOD and COD loads. Obnoxious smell
and ammoniacal odor emanating from degraded protein are also associated
with spent soak liquor.
2. LIMING
One of the most important pretanning operations is liming. The main objec-
tive of liming is removal of hair, flesh, and splitting up of fiber bundles by
42 P. Thanikaivelan et al.
chemical and physical means (Ramasami and Prasad, 1991). Hair can be ei-
ther digested (using lime and sodium sulfide) or mechanically removed after
loosening by chemical means. Flesh, being a loose, unstructured, and non-
compact material, has to be separated from leather-making material, corium
(middle layer of skin made up of a protein, collagen, in naturally woven fiber
bundles form), by the action of hydrostatic pressure and then is removed us-
ing a fleshing machine or knife. In this operation, lime and sodium sulfide are
used along with substantial quantities of water (Money, 1996). Lime increases
the pelt pH to 12–13 and also causes osmotic swelling due to ionic imbal-
ances built up in the matrix (Bienkiewicz, 1983). Swelling causes changes in
dimension and charge characteristics of the skin/hide. The skin/hide matrix
essentially becomes anionic, in other words, a cation exchanger. The hydro-
static pressure built up enhances the splitting up of fiber bundles, separation
of unwanted interfibrillary materials, and easy removal of flesh (Ramasami
et al., 1999a). Moreover, the combined action of S−2 and OH− ions helps
to degrade hair protein by nucleophilic displacement reaction at disulfide
bonds, as reported by Windus and Showell (1968).
Significant amounts of chemicals are used during pretanning. Optimum
amounts of chemicals need to be used to reduce the TDS, BOD, and COD
loads. Liming operations lead to not only wastewater containing significant
amounts of BOD, TDS and S2− but also substantial quantities of solid wastes
containing lime sludge, fleshing and hair (Ramasami and Prasad, 1991).
Sodium sulfide, a good reducing agent, interferes in the oxidation of organic
wastes and contributes significantly to the BOD and COD concentrations in
wastewater (Steven, 1983). The extensive use of sulfide yields unfavorable
consequences on environment and the efficacy of effuent treatment plants
(ETPs) (Bailey et al., 1982).
3. DELIMING
1990). The resultant salts of this operation would in turn increase the amounts
of COD and TDS (Ramasami et al., 1994).
4. BATING
5. PICKLING
B. Tanning
Tanning is a process in which the leather-making protein is permanently sta-
bilized against heat, enzymatic biodegradation, and thermomechanical stress
(Ramasami, 2001). In commercial practice, vegetable and chrome tanning
methods are widely used. The vegetable tanning method does not need the
prior preparation stage of pickling and therefore the contributions to pollu-
tion load from sulfate salts are lower. Vegetable tannins, however, are known
to be hard to biodegrade (Healy and Young, 1978), and hence wastes bearing
vegetable tannins degrade slowly.
Among the various tanning systems, chrome tanning is the most com-
monly used tanning system in commercial practice due to its ability to pro-
duce softer, weightless, bright-shade leathers with high wet heat resistance
in a shorter time frame. More than 90% of the leathers processed globally
44 P. Thanikaivelan et al.
C. Posttanning
Posttanning operations, in general, attempt the addition of aesthetic val-
ues and improvement of intrinsic properties of leather (Ramasami et al.,
1999c). Rechroming, neutralization, retanning, dyeing, and fatliquoring form
Recent Trends in Leather Making: Processes, Problems, and Pathways 45
the major steps of posttanning operations (Ramasami and Prasad, 1991). Post-
tanning operations are carried out in a narrow pH range of 4.0–6.0 using a
wide variety of proprietary formulated chemicals. It is now realized that post-
tanning processes contribute to neutral salts, COD, and heavy metal pollution
(Simoncini and Sammarco, 1995). Wastewater from posttanning processes
contains COD, TDS, and Cr in the range of 8.25, 10.7, and 0.12 kg/ton of
leather processed, respectively (Ramasami et al., 1998). Additionally, azo dyes
and biocides add to the toxic load of wastewater streams (BASF, 1998). The
contributions to BOD, COD, and TDS loads in wastewater are significantly
lower from the posttanning operations in comparison to the total discharge.
It, however, is necessary to carry out treatability studies on the proprietary
formulations so that nondegradable substances may be avoided.
D. Finishing
The pollution load and the volume of the effluent generated in finishing oper-
ations are not significant. This waste stream is characterized by the presence
of polymeric binders, heavy-metal-based pigments, solvents, nitrocellulose,
and other topcoat materials, as described by Greif (1990). The volume of
effluent from these operations including washing is about 1–2 m3 /ton of
rawhide processed (Langerwerf and Chandrababu, 1999). The air pollution
related to use of formaldehyde, unreacted acrylic monomers, toxic-metal-
based pigment formulations, and solvent-based top coats causes concern,
as the bulk of the gaseous wastes is produced in this set of unit operations
(Swarna et al., 1999; Corning et al., 1991; Deselinicu et al., 1997).
E. Solid Wastes
Apart from liquid and gaseous wastes, large quantities of solid wastes are
also generated during leather processing and subsequently during effluent
treatment (Germann, 1999). Although some of the wastes find limited applica-
tions, the safe disposal of the bulk of the solid wastes has posed serious prob-
lems. The types of solid wastes generated in a tannery processing 1 ton of raw
skins/hides have been quantified in Table 2 (Kaul and Ravindranath, 1999).
Environmental challenges from leather processing arise from both the na-
ture and the quantity of wastes discharged. In combatting the environmental
challenges in the leather processing industry in general and in developing
countries in particular, there has been an attempt to emphasize the role of
effluent treatment plants (ETPs) (Rao et al., 1999). Conventional tannery ETPs
46 P. Thanikaivelan et al.
The measures for waste minimization in leather processing involve a close au-
dit of the type and quantity of chemicals used, exhaustion levels of chemicals
48 P. Thanikaivelan et al.
A. Curing
One of the major sources of pollution from tannery wastewater has been
identified to be common salt or sodium chloride (Sundar and Muralidharan,
1999). This emanates largely from the curing, pickling, and chrome tan-
ning practices used in the leather processing. Saltless or less-salt curing
as an alternative to wet salting presents an interesting technological op-
tion (Ludvik and Orlita, 1986). Some of the cleaner curing methods are
(a) solar drying, (b) freeze drying (Stephens, 1987), (c) microwave/dielectric
drying (Komanowsky, 2000), (d) use of KCl in place of NaCl (Bailey, 1995a),
(e) borax–phenol (Selvarangan and Shanmugasundaram, 1984), (f) zinc chlo-
ride (Money, 1974), (g) silica gel and a low amount of salt (Kanagaraj et al.,
2000) and (g) metal oxinates (Bailey et al., 1976; Barrett, 1986). Management
options include processing green hides and skins, gamma (Bailey, 1999) and
electron beam (Bailey et al., 2001; Bailey and Haas, 1988) irradiation tech-
niques, and transportation in refrigerated trucks (Bailey, 1995b). Although
saltless curing processes do exist, wet salting is the most commonly followed
in commercial practice due to its low cost and high efficiency.
B. Desalting
Desalting of wet-salted raw stock prior to soaking forms an easy and imple-
mentable mode of reducing salt concentrations in tannery wastewater. De-
salting can be done either manually or mechanically. Manual methods impli-
cate dusting or brushing off the physically adhering crystalline salt. Through
this method, it has been observed that nearly 30–40% of the total salt con-
tained in wet salted skin or hide material can be removed (Rajamani and
Viswanathan, 1998). Mechanical desalting is carried out by the drumming of
wet-salted stock in a specially made slotted drum at 4–6 rpm. Air blowing
or the use of small amounts of rinse water can further facilitate the process.
Such desalting technologies also lead to better opening of fiber bundles and
significant reduction of the carryover of salt into the subsequent streams like
liming. Wheel-type desalting machines have been designed and used for ef-
ficient desalting of skins (Rao et al., 2001). The recovered salt can be reused
for curing fresh hides/skins as well as in pickling processes. The benefits
of desalting include (a) increase in the efficiency of soaking, (b) reducing
the amount of carryover salt, thereby reducing the pollution load, and (c)
recovery of salt.
50 P. Thanikaivelan et al.
C. Soaking
In-process control in soaking should aim at the reduction of TDS due to
dissolved chloride as well as the volume of wastewater discharged. In total,
salt alone accounts for 60–70% of the TDS in processing (Ramasami et al.,
1999b). The waste soak stream is currently being segregated and taken for
solar evaporation. Efforts should be made to eliminate salt as much as pos-
sible for a better management of the problem. Generally, the soaking pro-
cesses adopted in commercial practices involve cocurrent flow of materials,
namely, skins and hides on the one hand and soak liquor on the other (with 3
changes of water of 300% of raw weight). To reduce the discharge of waste
soak liquor, a countercurrent soaking method has been found to be very
effective. Countercurrent flow of materials could lead to a reduction in the
amount of water used by nearly 50–60% in soaking operations (Rao et al.,
2003). This offers an opportunity to reduce the hydraulic load by 20% in total
volume of wastewater.
D. Green Fleshing
Green fleshing is advocated to reduce the consumption of chemicals on the
one hand and to get more uniform results in liming on the other. In Western
countries, efforts are made to remove the flesh as much as possible in the
abattoir itself. By green fleshing, it has been possible to reduce the weight
of the stock by nearly 10% (Langerwerf and Chandrababu, 1999).
Significant efforts have been made in the past five decades to render
the dehairing process in tanneries cleaner. Sirolime (Cranston et al., 1986a,
1986b) and Darmstadt through-feed unhairing processes (Heidemann and
Harenberg, 1972; Heidemann, 1993) are based on the conventional chemical
inputs. The sirolime process consists of an impregnation stage with hydro-
sulfide and then a brief wash followed by oxidation of hydrosulfide external
to the hide. Lime is then added and hair loosening occurs due to localized
attack on the hair root by the sulfide ions generated within the hide. Hair is
recovered by filtration and any residual hair is destroyed in a secondary lim-
ing stage by the addition of sulfide, additional lime, surfactant, and recycled
lime liquor. A Darmstadt University group has introduced a continuous-flow
unhairing technique. Fresh or well-soaked hides hung over the bars along
the backbone hair side up are sprayed with 5–10% sodium sulfide solution
in technical concentration in a cabin for 5–20 min. The hairs are transformed
into a pulp and then stripped off with a special stripping cylinder device with
plastic blades. These pelts are instantly fleshed and subsequently splitted.
Dimethylamine (Somerville et al., 1963; Hetzel et al., 1965, 1966), thio-
glycolic acid, sodium thioglycolate, and performic acid (Kamal et al., 1998;
Uehara et al., 1986; Goddard and Michaelis, 1934; Fava et al., 1957) have
been used to replace sulfide for dehairing. These, however, are not commer-
cially successful for various reasons, such as cost, efficiency, and toxicity (von
Vlimmeren, 1976). Rosenbusch (1965) reported the use of chlorine dioxide
for dehairing. Morera et al. (1997) studied the use of hydrogen peroxide in
alkaline medium for dehairing by an oxidative mechanism. However, the
reduction in pollution load, especially COD, is not significant. Sehagal et al.
(1996) developed a nonenzymatic, sulfide-free dehairing process using 1%
nickel carbonate, 1% sodium hydroxide, 5% lime, and kaolin, along with wa-
ter, through a painting technique. Disposal or recovery of nickel compounds,
however, poses serious health problems. Schlosser et al. (1986) reported the
use of Lactobacillus-based enzymes at acidic conditions for dehairing. This
method leads to the solubilization of collagen at the experimental condi-
tions. Valeika et al. (1997, 1998) found that the additons of salts such as
sodium chloride, sodium sulfate, sodium formate, or sodium hydrogen phos-
phate influences the extent of hair removal, as well as opening the dermis
structure.
Röhm (1910) developed the first successful enzymatic unhairing, the
Arazym process, as described by Green (1952). Enzymatic unhairing (using
enzymes, generally based on protease, along with small amounts of sulfide
and lime applied as paint on the flesh side) causes loosening of hair by selec-
tive breakdown of cementing substances and presents a hair-saving approach
(Green, 1952; Bose, 1955; Pilawski and Felicjaniak, 1976; Jones et al., 1968;
Dhar, 1974; Puvanakrishnan and Dhar, 1986; Brady et al., 1990). Enzyme-
assisted processes for the removal of hair are associated with both merits
and demerits (Feigel, 1998b; Taylor et al., 1987). The demerits perceived are
52 P. Thanikaivelan et al.
F. Deliming
The use of ammonium chloride and ammonium sulfate adversely affects the
characteristics of the effluent (Huber and Satyendra, 1990). They contribute
to 75–80% of the ammonia in the effluent. Although the ammonium salts
are cheap and perform efficiently, the increase in COD of the wastewater
generated in the operation, apart from the generation of dissolved ammonia–
nitrogen, gives rise to difficulty in effluent treatment. The ammonium sulfate,
which is prevalently used, also contributes to dissolved sulfate. Hence, alter-
natives are sought to reduce the pollution load. These alternatives are based
on organic and inorganic acids, esters of carboxylic acids, and nonswelling
aromatic acids (Streicher, 1987; Frendrup, 1996). The costs of these products
are prohibitively high when compared to ammonium salts and hence they
are yet to be commercially exploited. Ammonia-free deliming has gained im-
portance in many countries. Carbon dioxide deliming has been carried out
Recent Trends in Leather Making: Processes, Problems, and Pathways 53
in some cases with success (Munz and Toifl, 1992; Purushotham et al., 1993).
In these instances, environmental as well as other quality benefits have been
reported. The issues needing special process adjustments include (a) com-
plete removal of sulfide prior to deliming, (b) the need for acid rather than
conventional alkaline bate, and (c) rigorous process control systems.
G. Pickling
The pickling process contributes to TDS in the form of chlorides considerably,
and this is not amenable to treatment via currently used end-of-pipe treatment
methods. As mentioned earlier, the current management practice involves
the solar evaporation of this stream mixed with the soak liquors. The long-
range solutions should include the possibility of saltless pickling (Pojer and
Huynh, 1999) and pickleless chrome tanning options (Dasgupta, 1998). The
immediate solution would be to consider the pickle recycle options (Burrows,
2001), which would considerably reduce the load in solar evaporation, which
becomes the bottleneck in increasing the capacity of production. The concept
of using nonswelling acid in pickling is already known, but this has not been
commercially exploited due to the high cost involved (Pojer and Huynh, 1999;
Rao et al., 2002c). There are many commercial products available based
on naphthalene sulfonic acids, sulfonated aromatic dicarboxylic acid like
phthalic acids, and auxiliary agents (Palop and Marsal, 2002; Post, 1964;
Herfeld and Schubert; 1975). The latter class of compounds is quite interesting
because they also help in improving the exhaustion of chrome and hence
the increase in the cost can to some extent be justified.
The commercial practice is to retain 50% of the pickle float for tanning
(Sundar et al., 2002). The remaining 50% is currently taken for solar evapora-
tion. There exists a possibility of reusing this pickle liquor after the removal
of the fibrous materials safely through filtration, for the next batch after re-
plenishment with salt and water (Burrows, 2001). Such recycle and reuse
methods reduce TDS of the effluent discharged from the identified stream.
H. Chrome Tanning
Among the various tanning systems, mineral tanning in general, and chrome
tanning in particular, have been popularly followed in commercial practices
due to aforementioned reasons. Much of the efforts for pollution reduction
are mainly focused on chrome tanning because chromium is considered to
be toxic (Leonard and Lauwerys, 1980; Katz, 1991; Dartsch et al., 1998).
The biotoxicity of chromium has been a subject of active discussion. Al-
though the implication of chromium(III) in glucose and lipid metabolism has
been considered beneficial (Govindaraju et al., 1989; Anderson et al., 1997;
Mertz, 1998), epidemiological and animal studies have firmly established
54 P. Thanikaivelan et al.
These streams are not directly amenable for discharge. While economic ad-
vantages of the high exhaustion chrome tanning are evident, further process-
ing of waste streams of the chrome tanning yard needs to be integrated.
2. DIRECT RECYCLING
Extensive studies have been made on the use of spent chrome liquor as a
pickling or tanning bath (Davis and Scroggie, 1973, 1980; France, 1975; Rao
et al., 2002c). Direct recycling of spent chrome tanning liquors for pickling
causes surface fixation of chromium due to high chromium concentrations.
Also, direct recycling of chrome liquors increases the concentration of neutral
salts, which reduce the chrome uptake in subsequent batches. Direct recy-
cling of spent chrome liquor after preacidification to a pH around 1.0 results
in leathers without any surface deposition of chromium (Davis and Scroggie,
1980). A system based on membrane separation for the selective removal
of chromium from neutral salts has been developed (Rao et al., 1989). This
system makes use of a chrome-rich stream for tanning and a neutral-salt-
rich stream for pickling. The economic viability of the technique is yet to be
established.
3. CLOSED PICKLE--TAN LOOP
(Sreeram et al., 2000a). One such plant has been installed in Tamil Nadu,
India, at a capacity of 24 m3 . Because the chrome recovery process ensures
that the sectional wastewater from the chrome tanning operation is segre-
gated and handled, sulfate-bearing streams can be diverted away from the
biomethanation reactors (Rajamani et al., 1995). This would facilitate a greater
efficiency of biomethanation. The TDS problem, however, needs to be ad-
dressed separately even when a chrome recovery/reuse process is adopted.
Attempts have been made to recover chrome as high-purity chromium
from tannery effluents (Deep et al., 2001). A three-step process involving pre-
cipitation, extraction, and electrodeposition has been developed by Gupta
et al. (2002) for the recovery of chromium(III) from tannery effluent. A sol-
vent extraction technique for recovering chromium from spent chrome liquor
has been developed using Cyanex 301–toluene (Khwaja et al., 2000a) as
well as mono(2-ethylhexyl) phosphoric acid–n-hexane (Khwaja et al., 2000b)
systems. Recently, an attempt has been made to remove chromium from tan-
nery effluent using seaweed, Sargassum species, and to reuse the chromium-
bearing seaweed in the manufacture of BCS as a reductant (Aravindhan et al.,
2004a).
5. TWO-STAGE CHROME TANNING
A new two-stage chrome tanning system has been evolved to overcome the
environmental problems of chrome tanning (Muralidharan et al., 2001). In
this system, the pickled pelt is treated with 10% (w/w) BCS (on fleshed weight
of hides and skins) initially with a sufficient quantity of water. After ensuring
complete penetration of chromium in the skin matrix, the spent chrome
solution is drained before the basification process and reused in the place
of chrome tanning salt for subsequent batch. The chromium-treated skin
matrix is subjected to basification subsequently. The spent liquor from this
process contains a low concentration of chromium and hence is reused for
the preparation of pickle liquor for the next batch, for efficient management
of chromium.
6. PICKLELESS CHROME TANNING
Organic tanning. It has now been possible to avoid completely the use
of mineral tanning salts in the manufacture of soft types of leather includ-
ing suede garments (Covington and Shi, 1998). It is also possible to process
richly dyed garment suedes based on vegeable and some organic tanning
adjuncts (Madhan et al., 2001b). In these processes, the role and importance
of surface charges assume much significance. The underlying process chem-
istry is becoming well understood. These technological options open up new
avenues for ecofriendly tanning methodologies (Covington, 1998).
There is a need to revisit the leather making operation anew. The wide
variations in pH of the skin matrix during the various steps in leather mak-
ing are bound to impair the bulk as well as surface properties, apart from
contributing to the generation and discharge of neutral salts. An appropriate
approach would be to render the tanning activities cleaner through near-
zero discharge of pollutants. This approach would target the development
of leather processing methods limiting the pH profile needed for various
operations to a narrow range. The net benefits from such an approach will
be
A nonlime fiber opening method based on sodium hydroxide has been de-
veloped by Thanikaivelan et al. (2001b). An optimum concentration [1.0%
(w/w) offer with 350% (v/w) water, based on weight of the dehaired hide] of
sodium hydroxide has been established for optimal opening of fiber bundles.
This has been substantiated through scanning electron microscopy, spent al-
kali liquor and pelt analysis, softness measurements, and stratigraphic chrome
62 P. Thanikaivelan et al.
distribution analysis. The pelt analysis shows that the opening of fiber bun-
dles has attained equilibrium, and the pH of the cross section is 8.5. Per-
formance of the leathers is shown to be on par with conventionally treated
leathers through physical and hand evaluation. Softness of the leathers is nu-
merically proven to be comparable with that of control leather treated with
lime. The process also enjoys elimination of the deliming process coupled
with a 45% reduction in total solids (TS) load on the environment.
et al., 2003b, 2004c). The processed leathers show physical and tactile prop-
erties similar or comparable to those of conventionally processed leathers.
The cross-section view of tanned cowhides through a scanning electron mi-
croscopy shows that the fiber bundles are not modified due to the change in
a multistep process to an enzyme-driven three step tanning process. It has
also been demonstrated that the biodriven three-step tanning is economically
viable and attractive, if commercial enzyme products are used. Enzymatic
processing when synergized with compact chrome tanning results in reduc-
tion of COD, TS, and chromium emissions into the environment by 80%,
85%, and 80%, respectively, compared to traditional processing. It cuts the
amount of solid sludge that dehairing and fiber opening generate by 91%. It is
also interesting to note that the enzyme treatment softens the matrix, thereby
increasing the area of the final leather. This results in nearly US$100 savings
for processing 1 ton skins/hides, because leather is sold on an area basis. Re-
cently, there is also an approach to use plant-based polyphenol compounds
for tanning instead of chromium at pH 8.0 (Saravanabhavan et al., 2004a) in
the three-step tanning process (Saravanabhavan et al., 2004b).
reviewed. Preliminary results show that the process schemes are capable of
lowering environmental threats drastically. Further studies and commercial
follow-up, however, would validate the developments.
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