The Effect of Palm Oil Sulfatation Time on Fatliquor Quality and Finished Leather Product

Fatliquoring process is an important process in leather manufacturing as the process affects the properties of leather such as softness, oil content, tensile strength, elongation at break and tear strength. In this study, sulfated oil was made from palm oil by sulfatation process using 25% sulfuric acid (98% content) with variation of sulfatation times (0, 1, 2, 3, and 4 hours). The study aimed to know the influence of sulfatation time on the production of sulfated oil to the quality of oil and finish leather produced. The results showed the sulfatation time affected the quality of sulfated oil and tanned leather. The optimum time for sulfatation process of palm oil was three hours. The quality of sulfated oil had water content of 6.47%, pH of 8, oil content of 81.28%, saponification number of 192.74%, total alkalinity of 0.25%, ash content of 2.77% and SO3 levels bond of 7.68%. The quality of finished leather were tensile strength of 286.50 N/mm2, elongation at break of 63.33%, softness of 3.92 mm and oil content of 10.15%.