Appropriateness of Anogessus leiocarpus leaves and bark as vegetable tannins traditionally used in leather making in Sudan

Chrome tanning industry is dominated globally owing to its high versatility in quality leather production. However, Environmental impacts of chromium have shifted the interest of present study to chrome-free options. Vegetable tannins have been proven to be environmentally safe producing good quality leather with comparable properties as that of chrome tanned leather. As such, scarcity of vegetable tannin supply demands characterization of non-commercialized sources locally available to feed local tanners. A simple extraction technique was used with different temperature 35, 50, & 85 oC. Leaves and barks from Anogessus leiocarpus grown in Sudan can produce commercially acceptable tannins in terms of extract yield, tannin, total phenolic, flavonoid contents, and crosslinking ability comparable to the extract from A. mearnsii barks, which is a worldwide known to be commercial tannin source. Results shows that temperature influences on extraction yields and tannin content was low, except for extract from Anogessus leiocarpus leaves that has shown an increase pattern with raise in temperature. Total phenolic and flavonoid content varied insignificantly with increase in extraction temperature, except for total flavonoid content of extract from Anogessus leiocarpus leaves that observed to be high at 50 oC (30.7). Variations in extract properties between extracts from plant parts studied in this work were significant. Tensile strength values of tanned skin with leaves extracts are higher than that tanned with barks. On the other hand, tanned skin with leaves extract produced greater skin elongation 40.6±0.35 compared to barks extract.