Data on collagen structures in leather with varying moisture contents from small angle X-ray scattering and three point bend testing

The data presented in this article are related to the research article entitled “Effect of collagen packing and moisture content on leather stiffness” (Kelly et al., 2018). This article describes how moisture content affects collagen packing and leather stiffness. Structural changes were experimentally introduced into ovine leather through biaxial strain during tanning (׳stretch tanning׳). Leather samples produced normally without strain (׳non-stretch tanned׳) and those produced by stretch tanning, were conditioned in a range of relative humidity environments and then analysed by small angle X-ray scattering and three point bend testing. The collagen D-spacing, lateral intermolecular spacing and flexural properties were measured under these varying moisture contents

Focal plane array IR imaging at the Australian Synchrotron

© 2018 A Focal Plane Array FTIR microscope has successfully been coupled to the IRM beamline at the Australian Synchrotron, following the method pioneered at previous beamlines at the SRC and NSLS I synchrotrons, whereby a wide aperture of synchrotron light is split into multiple beams and spatially reconfigured to match the entrance aperture of the FTIR instrumentation. Imaging performance has been assessed using a selection of polymer and biological samples, providing diffraction-limited sub-cellular lateral resolution in the biological materials. We have demonstrated that improved collection times at high lateral resolution are possible, when compared with single element point-mapping microspectroscopy, though this is achieved with a trade off in spectral noise. Future improvements in the use of an FPA detector at the Australian Synchrotron are proposed, including removal of coherent interference and installation of a dedicated beam extraction port for FPA microspectroscopy