Leather in an Innovative World of Materials—A Classification

Leather manufacture has a century-old history. Animal skins had been tanned since thousands of years to achieve a stable, flexible and long-lasting material for various purposes. The manufacture of artificial leather was invented in the beginning of the twentieth century when the polymer chemistry became increasingly important. Artificial leathers are usually manufactured by coating textiles with polyvinylchloride (PVC) or polyurethane (PU) in a multilayer system. During the last decade additional synthetic polymers were used for the whole composition or for the top layer as silicone, polylactide or polyacrylate. Today, leathers and artificial leathers are used for shoe, accessories, upholstery and fashion. Recently, driven by designers many new materials were proposed as alternatives to leather, basing completely or to some extent on vegetable agricultural by-products, vegetable gums or as well fungal hyphae or bacterial cellulose mats. However, a comparison of a dozen alternative materials showed, that the technical performance does often not achieve the necessary requirements for processability, longevity and comfort. The chapter will show some principal compositions of different materials which are available on the market, their manufacturing procedures and some selected properties and tendencies.