Leather

Muzej Cacak <cakonz [at] hotmail__com> writes

>I am looking for methods to make difference between leather which is
>natural and leather which is artificial. Can you suggest me any kind
>of chemical method of identification? ...

Burning a sample with the tip of a needle will give you a
distinctive smell. Looking the surface of leather under the
microscope will show you different patterns for different kinds of
leather, so not only will you be able to identify if your sample is
leather or not, you will also be able to tell what kind of animal it
came from.

Evangelia Kyriazi
Head of the Conservation Department
Natural History Museum of the Lesvos Petrified Forest, Greece


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                  Conservation DistList Instance 21:11
                   Distributed: Sunday, June 17, 2007
                       Message Id: cdl-21-11-005
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