Effectiveness of wax emulsion in leather industry

The application of wax emulsions in the leather industry is mainly focused on two aspects: first, through chemical modification, such as oxidation, esterification and other reactions to give some new functional groups in the molecular structure of paraffin wax, thereby expanding the application areas of paraffin wax, the current means of modification of paraffin waxes are mainly chlorination, chlorosulfonation, carbonylation, etc., the main products are chlorinated paraffin waxes, alkyl sulfonyl chloride and advanced saturated fatty acids and advanced saturated fatty alcohols, etc.. At the same time, paraffin wax as the main raw material, and other materials such as: low relative molecular weight polyethylene wax, some resins, materials, surfactants, emulsifiers and other additives to prepare a combination of wax emulsion, widely used in leather finishing and other processing.

1. Wax emulsions used as leather additives to play a role

(1) the additive when finishing

In the leather finishing agent to add wax emulsion mainly fill the coating, improve the feel of the coating, wear resistance, anti-viscosity and increase the role of gloss. Paraffin wax as the main raw material can greatly reduce the price of wax emulsion, and the use of the effect is not worse than natural wax, is the main additives to decorate high-grade leather, can give the leather a special brightness and wax sense. From the use can be divided into soft wax and hard wax, respectively for the bottom layer, middle layer and top layer of leather finishing; from the ionic nature of the emulsion can be divided into non-ionic, anionic and cationic wax emulsion, can be used with different ionic properties of the finishing agent; from the dosage form can be made into emulsion type or solid emulsified wax. All products have good water solubility, stable emulsion, no delamination and no floating wax in long-term storage. They can be applied to all kinds of leather finishing, and the leather after finishing has a soft and natural luster, a rich and moist feel, and can improve the friction resistance of the leather surface.

2. Wax emulsion is used as leather brightening agent

Matting agent and feel agent

At present, people have two major requirements for the appearance of leather products, one is to increase the luster of leather, such as polished leather, lacquer leather, polishing effect leather, etc.; the other is not glossy, so that the leather presents a sense of leather, natural beauty. The former need to use glossy agent , the latter need to use matting agent. Choose different wax emulsion for leather top coating, some can increase the leather gloss or brightness, some can produce matting effect present leather charm.

The wax emulsion particle size required to produce glossy effect is very small, in the leather surface to form a layer of homogeneous and continuous wax film, microscopic film is very smooth, to produce a strong reflection of light waves, thus having a sense of gloss; produce matting effect of wax emulsion diameter is larger, in the leather surface to form a non-homogeneous and microscopic uneven surface, to produce a strong scattering effect of light waves, scattering effect is the fundamental reason for matting agent to produce matting effect.

To sum up, wax emulsion is widely used in leather field, not only can make leather life increase, at the same time can make leather glowing.