Determination of Thermal Behavior of Leathers in Different Processes by Differential Scanning Calorimetry and Evaluation of the Analysis Conditions

The study examined the thermal behavior of leathers in different processes by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) under the various analysis conditions and the representativeness of hydrothermal stability of leathers by DSC method were investigated. For this purpose, hydrothermal stability of the raw skin, pickled, tanned and finished leathers was firstly analyzed with standard shrinkage temperature test. Then, same leather samples were analyzed in dry and wet states under the different conditioning parameters by DSC method. The obtained data showed that the leather samples analyzed between 25-150 oC, in aqueous media, conditioned for 24 h and within the anti-pressure cells provided the best results. Moreover, the data derived from DSC thermograms under the cited conditions were also parallel with the shrinkage temperature (Ts) values of leathers obtained by standard method