At the 2025 edition of Simac Tanning Tech, Sintex, based in Brendola (Vicenza) and a leader in coating machines for transfer paper and fabrics, will once again highlight its globally recognized production process, now featuring an important innovation.
At this event, the SintLeather 2.0 project will be Sintex’s ace in the hole. Located in the Arzignano leather district, Sintex is a market leader not only in coating machines for transfer paper and fabrics but also active in related sectors such as textiles, footwear, plastics and paper engineering. At their booth, the Venetian company will showcase the best of their product range and, most notably, their cutting-edge technologies, which have gained strong national and international acclaim and are now making their mark in the automotive industry.
“Among our most successful offerings,” say Giuliano Griffante and Alessandro Pizzeghello, owner and sales manager respectively, “is SintLeather 2.0, launched in 2016 and continuously refined and enhanced over the years. More than just a machine, it’s an innovative technology, initially little known and perhaps underestimated, that combines traditional tannery finishing methods, such as classic machines and spray booths, with a finishing process based on coating engraved siliconized paper. This system, in which we have heavily invested and placed great confidence, enables a sophisticated finishing process for full-grain leather and splits, effectively rejuvenating the material while preserving its softness and natural feel.”
“We’d like to emphasize a key technical distinction,” they add, “that sets SintLeather apart from similar technologies offered by other manufacturers. The use of release paper in leather finishing introduces a technology borrowed from a completely different industry, the synthetics’ sector, particularly polyurethanes and PVC laminated onto various textile backings. This sector is highly technical yet more cost-effective than leather, where performance is critical, savings are essential, and preserving the release paper is vital for quality. Successfully applying this technology to leather finishing requires deep expertise in both the production process and the release paper itself. Sintex, now in its second generation of coating machine manufacturing, boasts decades of experience in this specialized field.”
“Our drying ovens primarily use heated air, as has been standard among synthetic producers for the past 50 years. We heat the air via heat exchangers using thermal oil, steam, or, in some cases, gas burners, ensuring significant energy savings. Regardless of the heat exchanger used, our process heats the air, which then dries the products coated on the release paper. Alternative methods, such as direct irradiation, are either ineffective or cause damage, sometimes destroying the paper and its polypropylene and silicon coatings, drastically reducing the number of times the paper can be reused. Unlike the automotive industry, where ‘switching to electric’ direct irradiation might seem appealing for initial cost savings, in this context it results in very high medium- and long-term expenses. Moreover, using heated, ventilated air improves drying efficiency and reduces machine downtime, nearly doubling monthly productivity compared to similar technologies.”
“The drying system,” Griffante and Pizzeghello conclude, “is fundamental, with each stage of the production process requiring precise temperature control. In the final phase of SintLeather production, Sintex has incorporated an independent, triple-pass oven to dry leather laminated to release paper at low temperatures over extended periods. This technical feature is one of many reasons why leading tanneries worldwide have adopted our process.”
Il nuovo forno progettato da Sintex, appena lanciato sul mercato
The new oven designed by Sintex, just launched on the market