PU is the abbreviation of polyurethane in English, and the chemical name in Chinese is "polyurethane". PU leather is a skin made of polyurethane. It is widely used in the decoration of bags, clothing, shoes, vehicles and furniture. It has been increasingly recognized by the market. Its wide range of applications, large quantities and varieties cannot be satisfied by traditional natural leather. The quality of PU leather also varies, and good PU leather is even better than real leather.
In China, people are accustomed to calling artificial leather produced with PU resin as raw material PU artificial leather (PU leather for short); artificial leather produced with PU resin and non-woven fabrics as raw materials is called PU synthetic leather (synthetic leather for short). It is customary to collectively refer to the above three types of leather as synthetic leather.
Artificial leather and synthetic leather are an important part of the plastics industry and are widely used in various industries of the national economy. The production of artificial leather and synthetic leather has a history of more than 60 years of development in the world. China began to develop and produce artificial leather in 1958. It is an industry that developed earlier in China's plastics industry. The development of China's artificial leather and synthetic leather industry is not only the growth of equipment production lines of manufacturing enterprises, product output increasing year by year, and varieties and colors increasing year by year, but also the industry development process has its own industry organization, which has considerable cohesion, so that China's artificial leather can be , synthetic leather companies, including related industries, have organized together and developed into an industry with considerable strength.
Following PVC artificial leather, PU synthetic leather has achieved breakthrough technological progress as an ideal substitute for natural leather after more than 30 years of painstaking research and development by scientific and technological experts.
PU coating on the surface of fabrics first appeared on the market in the 1950s. In 1964, the American DuPont Company developed a PU synthetic leather for shoe uppers. After a Japanese company established a production line with an annual output of 600,000 square meters, after more than 20 years of continuous research and development, PU synthetic leather has grown rapidly in terms of product quality, variety, and output. Its performance is getting closer and closer to natural leather, and some properties even exceed natural leather, reaching the point where it is difficult to distinguish between genuine and fake natural leather. It occupies a very important position in human daily life.
Today, Japan is the largest producer of synthetic leather. The products of Kuraray, Teijin, Toray, Zhongbo and other companies basically represent the international development level in the 1990s. Its fiber and non-woven fabric manufacturing is developing in the direction of ultra-fine, high-density and high non-woven effects; its PU manufacturing is developing in the direction of PU dispersion and PU water emulsion, and its product application fields are constantly expanding, starting from shoes and bags The field has developed into other special application fields such as clothing, balls, decoration, etc., covering all aspects of people's daily life.
Artificial leather is the earliest substitute for leather fabrics invented. It is made of PVC plus plasticizers and other additives, calendered and compounded on cloth. The advantages are cheap, rich colors and various patterns. The disadvantages are that it hardens easily and Become brittle. PU synthetic leather is used to replace PVC artificial leather, and its price is higher than PVC artificial leather. In terms of chemical structure, it is closer to leather fabrics. It does not use plasticizers to achieve soft properties, so it will not become hard or brittle. It also has the advantages of rich colors and various patterns, and is cheaper than leather fabrics. So it is welcomed by consumers.
There is also PU with leather. Generally, the back side is the second layer of cowhide, and a layer of PU resin is coated on the surface, so it is also called film cowhide. Its price is cheaper and its utilization rate is high. With changes in technology, it has also been made into various grades, such as imported second-layer cowhide. Due to its unique technology, stable quality, and novel varieties, it is a high-grade leather, and its price and grade are no less than first-layer genuine leather. PU leather bags and genuine leather bags have their own characteristics. PU leather bags have beautiful appearance, are easy to take care of, and are relatively cheap, but are not wear-resistant and easy to break. Genuine leather bags are expensive and troublesome to take care of, but they are durable.
There are two ways to distinguish leather fabrics from PVC artificial leather and PU synthetic leather: one is the softness and hardness of the leather, real leather is very soft and PU is hard, so PU is mostly used in leather shoes; the other is the use of burning and melting The way to distinguish is to take a small piece of fabric and put it on the fire. Leather fabric will not melt, but PVC artificial leather and PU synthetic leather will melt.
The difference between PVC artificial leather and PU synthetic leather can be distinguished by soaking it in gasoline. The method is to use a small piece of fabric, put it in gasoline for half an hour, and then take it out. If it is PVC artificial leather, it will become hard and brittle. PU synthetic leather will not become hard or brittle.
challenge
Natural leather is widely used in the production of daily necessities and industrial products due to its excellent natural properties. However, with the growth of the world's population, human demand for leather has doubled, and the limited amount of natural leather can no longer meet this demand. In order to solve this contradiction, scientists began to research and develop artificial leather and synthetic leather decades ago to make up for the shortcomings of natural leather. The research history of more than 50 years is the process of artificial leather and synthetic leather challenging natural leather.
Scientists started by studying and analyzing the chemical composition and organizational structure of natural leather, starting from nitrocellulose varnish, and then moved on to PVC artificial leather, which is the first generation product of artificial leather. On this basis, scientists have made many improvements and explorations, firstly the improvement of the base material, and then the modification and improvement of the coating resin. In the 1970s, synthetic fiber non-woven fabrics developed processes such as needle punching and bonding, which gave the base material a lotus root-shaped cross-section and hollow fiber shape, achieving a porous structure that is consistent with the mesh structure of natural leather. Requirements: The surface layer of synthetic leather at that time could already have a polyurethane layer with a fine pore structure, which was equivalent to the grain surface of natural leather, so that the appearance and internal structure of PU synthetic leather were gradually close to that of natural leather, and other physical properties were close to those of natural leather. index, and the color is brighter than natural leather; its folding resistance at room temperature can reach more than 1 million times, and its folding resistance at low temperature can also reach the level of natural leather.
The emergence of microfiber PU synthetic leather is the third generation of artificial leather. The non-woven fabric with its three-dimensional structure network creates the conditions for synthetic leather to catch up with natural leather in terms of base material. This product combines the newly developed processing technology of PU slurry impregnation and composite surface layer with an open-pore structure to exert the huge surface area and strong water absorption of ultra-fine fibers, making the ultra-fine PU synthetic leather have the characteristics of bundled ultra-fine Collagen fiber natural leather has inherent hygroscopic properties, so it is comparable to high-grade natural leather in terms of internal microstructure, appearance texture, physical properties and people's wearing comfort. In addition, microfiber synthetic leather surpasses natural leather in terms of chemical resistance, quality uniformity, adaptability to mass production and processing, waterproofing, and resistance to mildew and degeneration.
Practice has proved that the excellent properties of synthetic leather cannot be replaced by natural leather. From the analysis of domestic and foreign markets, synthetic leather has also largely replaced natural leather with insufficient resources. The use of artificial leather and synthetic leather to decorate bags, clothing, shoes, vehicles and furniture has been increasingly recognized by the market. Its wide range of applications, large quantities and varieties cannot be satisfied by traditional natural leather.
PU artificial leather Maintenance Cleaning method:
1. Clean with water and detergent, avoid scrubbing with gasoline.
2.Do not dry clean
3. It can only be washed with water, and the washing temperature cannot exceed 40 degrees.
4.Do not expose to sunlight
5. Do not come into contact with some organic solvents
6. PU leather jackets need to be hung in bags and cannot be folded.
Post time: May-11-2024