Assessment of pelt quality in leather making using a novel non-invasive sensing approach.

Excessive removal of structural material from skin during leather processing results in unattractive crease formation in leather. It is difficult to detect this in pelts at an early processing stage as it only becomes really apparent once the skin is made into leather. There would be great advantages in detecting the problem at the pickled pelt stage (skins treated with sodium sulphide and lime, bated with enzymes, and then preserved in NaCl and sulphuric acid) so that adjustments to the processing could be made to mitigate the effect. A novel bio-sensor for inspection of pickled lamb pelts has been fabricated and developed. The sensor has the planar Interdigital structure. The experimental results show that the sensor has a great potential to predict the quality of leather in a non-invasive and non-destructive way.