Innovation Made in Germany

Otto Bayer – inventor of the new material

At the beginning of the 20th century, numerous chemists were busy developing substitutes for scarce natural products. Starting in 1912, Fritz Klatte made the first experiments with vinyl chloride, the basic material for PVC, in order to develop a usable material. However, it took until the 1950s before the first synthetic leather products based on “soft” PVC were used, initially for seats in buses and trains. The development work of Otto Bayer, who registered a patent for the production of polyurethane (PUR) in 1937, was decisive for the high-quality imitation leathers that are now indistinguishable from natural leather.
From then on, the companies DuPont (US) and Kuraray (J) pushed the development of artificial leathers with polyurethane coating.
The first products appeared on the market in the 1970s. German companies such as Freudenberg and Kalle were also active in this field.
However, thanks to continuous process optimization, Japanese companies are the quality reference for both microfiber-based velour (cf. alcantara) and synthetic lamb nappas.