Kyoto

Jun 03, 2023

January 22, 2023 (Mainichi Japan)

Japanese version

KYOTO -- A chemical manufacturer here has created "wood leather" that reproduces the texture of genuine leather, using Japanese cedar, cypress and other woods as the main raw materials.

The product is soft despite being mainly made of wood, and has a scent and deodorizing effect unique to wood. The developer, San Nopco Ltd. based in Kyoto's Higashiyama Ward, expects wood leather to be widely used as an "ethical plant-based leather" that does not use animal skin and is environmentally and animal welfare friendly.

According to the company, wood leather is made from 55% wood chips and the rest includes a plant-derived polyurethane resin developed independently, resulting in over 80% plant-based ingredients. It is manufactured by mixing finely powdered wood chips with resin and other materials, and then spreading it evenly over special paper.

Generally, wood is strong and hard in large quantities, making it difficult to utilize by softening it. San Nopco is a subsidiary of Sanyo Chemical Industries, a major firm, and has a unique interface control technology that maintains the uniformity of the formulation. By taking advantage of this strength, the company has developed wood leather that looks and feels like genuine leather while maintaining flexibility.

The development of the novel leather was triggered by in-house initiatives to find a way to utilize scrap wood generated in the process of manufacturing construction materials. The company began research in November 2021, and repeated trial production, including adjusting the resin, to improve its practicality. In-house tests confirmed that wood leather is as resistant to abrasion as synthetic leather and has excellent moisture release and absorption.

The prototype brown wood leather was made from Japanese cedar and cypress, and the black one was mixed with powder from traditional Japanese "binchotan" charcoal. The highly original proposal for utilizing wood was well received and was selected for the incentive prize at the Japan Wood Design Award 2022 sponsored by the Japan Wood Design Association. The prices for the wood leather goods have not yet been fixed, but they are expected to be used for sundry items such as wallets, daily necessities, and interior decoration of rooms and cars.

In recent years, the use of genuine leather has been strongly criticized by some circles from the viewpoint of animal welfare, and environmental problems have been pointed out with synthetic leather made from petroleum-derived materials.

Masahiro Watanabe, 40, of San Nopco's substrate product research department, who developed wood leather, said, "Wood leather is an eco-friendly material that can help reduce waste, decrease the use of petroleum-based materials, and be animal-free. We hope it will be widely used."

For inquiries, call Sanyo Chemical Industries at 075-541-4312 (in Japanese).

(Japanese original by Norikazu Chiba, Kyoto Bureau)