Manufacture of Sole from Leather and Rubber Wastes blends

Abstract

The aim of this Study was to manufacture sole from buffing leather waste and buffing rubber waste. Through tanning process a large amount of solid waste produced from leather manufacturing. Leather buffing dust is a waste from buffing operations and constitutes an important part of solid wastes. The leather and rubber buffing wastes resulted from buffing machine were blended and mixed with Polyurethane adhesive in different formulations. Mechanical properties of experimental footwear sole, such as tensile strength, elongations and hardness. Density test was determined as a physical test. The leather and rubber buffing wastes were blended successfully and the result showed that, tensile strength was 28.8 (kg/cm2), elongation 50 (%), hardness 81 (shore A) and density 0.91 (gm/cc). It is concluded the optimum different composition of leather and rubber buffing wastes blends (leather\rubber 50:50) provided good mechanical and physical properties of sole.