Specify hide type, hair-save or hair-burn, and the wetting problem. A dye-house fatliquor is not a liming auxiliary.
The lime yard sets the grain
Hair, epidermis, and grease have to leave before chrome or vegetable tannage. Surfactants in soaking and liming are there to wet and to emulsify, not to soften the crust. Esteem’s beam-house range is the product family for that work.
A tannery that upgrades only the fatliquor and leaves a scuddy grain will not get a clean aniline. Say so in the trial plan.
Hair-save versus hair-burn
Hair-save systems need the hair intact and filtered. A surfactant that over-disperses hair can load the float and the screens. Hair-burn systems need a different cleanliness check. Write which process you run.
Sheep and goat carry more natural fat than many bovine hides. Degreasing belongs in the same conversation as liming for those skins.
What not to send
Alkoxylates are often the wetting chemistry behind these auxiliaries. The request should still say beam house, because a textile wetting agent and a lime auxiliary are tested differently.
Photograph scud on the grain. It is the evidence the later dye patches will match.
| Process | Surfactant job | Wrong sample |
|---|---|---|
| Soak | Rewet cured hides | A dye-house oil |
| Lime / unhairing | Scud and hair release | A finishing feel agent |
| Degrease | Natural fat emulsification | A lightfast white fatliquor |
| Deliming | Uniform pH drop | More lime wetter by habit |
Unhairing is a chemical cut, wetting is access
Hair is removed because sulfide reduces the keratin disulfide bonds in the alkaline lime bath. The chemistry does nothing until it reaches the follicle. Grease, dung, and the hydrophobic grain slow that contact. A beamhouse wetting agent lowers the contact angle so the liquor spreads and penetrates instead of sitting as beads on the flesh and hair.
That is a kinetic help. It does not replace sodium sulfide or sodium hydrosulfide, and it does not set the swelling. Swelling is the lime and the alkalinity acting on collagen. A surfactant that is also a strong detergent can strip natural fat early, which is useful when the spec says so and harmful when the later vegetable or chrome process needed some of that fat.
Alkali and salt are the selection tests
Lime liquors are above pH 12 and carry dissolved lime plus sulfide. Many alcohol ethoxylates cloud out or lose wetting as temperature and salt rise. Phosphate esters and some sulfates keep wetting in electrolyte, which is why they appear in alkaline cleaner logic as well as in the beamhouse. The grade still has to be soluble at the temperature of that pit or drum.
Foam is not a sign of wetting. A high-foam sulfate can look active and then stabilise a sulfide foam that carries hair and protein over the drum door. Low-foam or controlled-foam wetters are specified when the drum is full and the liquor is recycled. Say which constraint is binding: penetration, foam, or fat removal.
What a failed lime looks like
Hair left in the follicle is incomplete unhairing: sulfide strength, time, temperature, or poor wetting. A slick, over-swollen pelt is alkalinity and time, not a reason to add more surfactant. Uneven grain after unhairing often traces to grease that the wetter never shifted, so the sulfide attacked some areas faster than others.
Record sulfide offer, lime offer, temperature, float, and whether the surfactant is expected to degrease. A sample chosen only as “a beamhouse nonionic” cannot answer a grease specification or a foam specification.
How to Specify with Esteem
- State bovine, calf, goat, or sheep.
- Say hair-save or hair-burn, and enzyme or sulfide.
- Describe scud, hard grain, or poor swelling.
- Keep this request off the fatliquor offer sheet.
- Check grain cleanliness before the hide is tanned.
Beam-house products are on beam house chemicals. The wetting and degreasing article is the companion.