Sustainability without Compromise
Tanneries shouldn’t have to choose between saving the planet and making a profit
What are Sferes™?
Qualus’ Sferes are small polymer balls about the size of garden peas that replace some of the water in the retanning process and thereby enhance the mechanical action inside the drum.
Sferes gently massage the chemicals into the fibre structure of the hides, helping to improve chemical delivery. Not only does this reduce the amount of water and chemicals required for retanning and shorten the cycle time for retanning, but also it improves aesthetics and enhances the technical properties of the finished product.
Sferes compliment the large macro-level mechanical action of the drum with a micro-level mechanical action, by getting in between the leather folds inside the drum, helping to better drive the chemistry into the hide, resulting in deeper and more uniform delivery of chemicals across the whole hide. And unlike water which is flushed down the drain after each cycle, Sferes can be reused cycle after cycle for several years.
Our Patented Sferes™ Technology helps Tanneries To:
BECOME A SUSTAINABILITY CHAMPION
- Use 30% to 40% less water
- Use 10% to 20% less chemicals
- Reduce Carbon Footprint by 15%
- Discharge 25% to 35% less effluent waste
INCREASE MARGINS AND PRODUCTIVITY
- Boost profits by 40% to 90%
- Reduce production time by 20%
- Improve product yield by 2% to 3%
BE THE PREFERRED SUPPLIER FOR BRANDS
- Produce the highest quality product…
- …at the most competitive price…
- …with the best possible LWG rating
Qualus-as-a-Service™ (QaaS™)
Getting started with using Sferes for retanning is easy and low-cost. With our QaaS model, every day we send you a shipment of Sferes to use for your retanning production. The next day we collect the Sferes that you have used, and we take them away for cleaning at a Qualus Service Centre (QSC), and we bring you another shipment of clean Sferes. Your staff focus on making leather, and our team handles the cleaning of Sferes.
And best of all, as Sferes works with your existing drums, the investment to set up your production to work with Qualus is very low and is usually fully paid back within 6 months.
The QaaS model is already available to tanneries in and around Ranipet, India; Leon, Mexico; and Novo Hamburgo, Brazil. And in 2023 we will be establishing QSCs in other tannery clusters throughout the world to enable ever more tanneries to benefit from using Sferes.
Starting with Sferes is as easy as 1, 2, 3…
1 Demonstration in R&D Drums
See the benefits of using Sferes for yourself with a demonstration in R&D drums – our team of experienced leather technicians will come to your tannery and run demonstrations on site with your team for 1 to 2 weeks to show how you can use Sferes to reduce water and chemicals for your retanning production.
2 Initial Scale-Up
After you are satisfied with the results of the R&D demos, we can set up 1 to 3 production drums to start using Sferes for up to 3 months. This allows you to get familiar with handling Sferes in full-scale production. The changes to the drums are easy and low cost, and our engineers will also design the equipment for handling the Sferes to make it easy for you to load them into the drum and collect them at the end of the cycle.
During this period we also work with your leather technicians to help optimise the use of Sferes for your tannery. Some of the tanneries that have started using Sferes have achieved astonishing results, even beyond our own expectations: 60% reduction in water, 30% reduction in chemicals, 30% reduction in cycle time!
3 Full Rollout
Once you are satisfied with the production in the Initial Scale-Up, we can set up the rest of your drums to start working with Sferes so that you can gain the benefits across your full production. As we help you set up more drums to work with Sferes, we also train your staff to handle Sferes effectively, and optimise the design of the equipment based on the requirements identified by your team in the Initial Scale-Up to make sure that you have an efficient solution.