Contribution of UV Technology to Sustainable Textile Production and Design

Abstract

The textile and fashion industry is one of the oldest and largest sectors in the World. In the textile industry, it is possible to create both functional and artistic designs by using different materials and different techniques together in harmony. However, it is very important that the applied process types should not harm the environment and living things. Therefore, one of the issues that have come up recently is sustainable textile design. As a result of the developments in today's world, companies invest in technology in order to provide competitive advantage in many sectors and to increase environmental awareness. Textile industry inevitably should re-design their processes in order to reduce the potential environmental damage leading to more sustainable planet for future generations. Therfore, the usage of sustainable, renewable materials and sustainable eco-friendly production methods should be increased in textile industry more and more in order to overcome possible increasing environmental problems arising from the processes of textile sector. In this respect, for instance, ultraviolet (UV) technology offers many alternative innovative usage types not only in the textile industry but also in many other different industrial areas. The usage of UV technology offers so much positive attributes to the textile production and design and also provides sustainable and eco-friendly opportunities for many different areas of the textile industry. The new usage types of UV technology in the textile sector has still been explored today and developed day by day. In this chapter, the information about Ultraviolet (UV) and UV technology, the usage areas of UV technology, the contribution and the production efficiency advantages of UV technology to sustainable textile production and design (such as the use of UV technology in decolorization and purification of textile wastewaters, as pre-treatment and surface modification processes prior to coloration processes, for UV-curing process and for pilling problem prevention etc.) were given in detail.