Residual Chromium in Leather by Instrumental Neutron Activation Analysis

Problem statement: Most tanning processes employ the use of chromium sulphate. For chromium tanned leather, finished products may contain high amount of residual chromium. This may pose some health hazards, since chromium is known to be toxic at elevated concentration. This justifies the need for the study. Approach: Various samples of leather were collected from a tannery, a leather crafts market, a leather dump site and from local tanners all in Kano, Nigeria in 2009. The samples were irradiated for 6 h in the inner site of the Nigerian Research Reactor (NIRR-1) at a flux of 5×10¹¹ ncm^-2 sec^-1. Results: After evaluating the spectrum, the mean results for chromium in the samples were determined as 2.33±0.3, 2.23±0.3 and 2.93±0.4% for samples from the tannery, leather crafts market and leather dump sites respectively. Chromium concentration in samples collected from local tanners who use tannins from Acacia nilotica as tanning agent was below the detection limit of Instrumental Neutron Activation Analysis (INAA) technique used in the study. Conclusion: Although, the concentrations of chromium in the analysed samples were not much higher than what were obtained in literature, they may be enough to sensitize the population that is allergic to chromium.