Introduction : SYNTHOL SF 838
Combining profound softness, uniform tightness and a warm touch.
The opportunities with SYNTHOL SF 838
SYNTHOL SF 838 combines profound softness, uniform tightness and a warm touch, three requirements for premium quality shoe upper and nappa. Before you needed a balanced blend of several sulphited and sulphated products, but no more. Due to it's chemistry SYNTHOL SF 838 combines the strengths of sulphited and sulphated oils in just one product. Combining SYNTHOL SF 838 with just synthetic fatliquors is enough to make your leathers better and your life easier.
Why sulphitation?
Sulphitation adds great process stability to a fatliquor and ensures an unhindered penetration into the leather's inner zones. This makes it suitable for articles where maximum softness is the main requirement and less recommendable when grain tightness has first priority.
Why sulphatation?
Take this description, turn it around, and you have a sulphated fatliquor. This chemical treatment supplies the oil with less stability against floats that contain salts, acids or chromium. Rechroming with it's cationic nature and floats with a high electrolyte content are forbidden territory for sulphated oils. Such surroundings are able to disturb the sulphated emulsion, whereas the emulsion of a sulphited bond is less fragile. Wetblue itself is one big electrolyte so that even under the best of fatliquoring circumstances the fatliquor stops to penetrate once it meets chrome tanned collagen. This reaction explains why sulphated fatliquors are used where inner softness and deep penetration are much less an issue than perfect grain tightness.
Why not combine these strengths in one product?
Examples of both oil types are SULPHIROL EG 60 (sulphited) and POLYOL AK (sulphated). For leathers both soft and tight grained, oiling with a mixture of those two has always been a good option. They remain separate products, however, and achieving one property always comes at the price of another. At times the perfect balance between softness and tightness may be difficult to find.
With SYNTHOL SF 838 blending and trying are no longer necessary. Within one product SYNTHOL SF 838 combines the softness needed for today's high-substance nappas with the grain tightness of our classic sulphated oils. It adds a specific soft fullness and a warm handle which makes leathers fatliquored with SYNTHOL SF 838 immediately stand out and recognizable. In the following graph you can get an impression of the strengths of SYNTHOL SF 838 compared to sulphited and sulphated products.
Application of SYNTHOL SF 838
SYNTHOL SF 838 is a general fatliquor that can be used for a wide range of leathers, although it's main strength can be found in application for shoe upper or nappas.
Due to it's chemical constitution SYNTHOL SF 838 is best used in combination with other fatliquors. As guidance we suggest to use up to 30-50% of SYNTHOL SF 838 in the fatliquor combination. Higher percentages can be used if applied in a suitable application.
To obtain combined softness and grain tightness SYNTHOL SF 838 is best used with SYNTHOL GS 606, SYNTHOL SL 335 or SULPHIROL EG 60.
For suede leathers fatliquor SYNTHOL SF 838 can be used as the main fatliquor in combination with e.g. SULPHIROL SQ 610.
SYNTHOL SF 838 is a fatliquor of medium stability. It is sensitive to water hardness, electrolytes and unfixed retanning agents and dyestuffs.
SYNTHOL SF 838 can be used for white and lightfast articles.
General product properties
softness : softness of a sulphited fatliquor
tightness : tightness of a sulphated fatliquor
touch : due to it's chemistry a warm touch is obtained
application : soft, tight leathers with a warm touch
light fastness
test method : DIN EN ISO 105-B02
test result : excellent