Environmental Profile Study of Ozone Decolorization of Reactive Dyed Cotton Textiles by Utilizing Life Cycle Assessment

Ajinkya Powar,Le Vinh Hoang,Jinping Guan,Nemeshwaree Behary,Guoqiang Chen,Stelian Sergiu Maier,Thierry Aussenac,Carmen Loghin,Anne Perwuelz

doi:10.3390/su13031225

Abstract

Research approaches on the use of ecotechnologies like ozone assisted processes for the decolorization of textiles are being explored as against the conventional alkaline reductive process for the color stripping of the cotton textiles. The evaluation of these ecotechnologies must be performed to assess the environmental impacts. Partial “gate to gate” Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) was implemented to study the ozone based decolorization process of the reactive dyed cotton textiles. Experiments were performed to determine input and output data flows for decolorization treatment of reactive dyed cotton textile using the ozonation process. The functional unit was defined as “treatment of 40 g of reactive dyed cotton fabric to achieve more than 94% color stripping”. Generic and specific data bases were also used to determine flows, and International Life Cycle Data system (ILCD) method was selected to convert all flows into environmental impacts. The impact category “Water resource depletion” is the highest for all the ozonation processes as it has the greatest relative value after normalization amongst all the impact indicators. Electricity and Oxygen formation were found to be the major contributors to the environmental impacts. New experimental conditions have been studied to optimize the impacts.

Highlights

Reactive dyes constitute nearly 50% of the worldwide market for the coloring of cellulose-based fibers [1]
We have proposed the use of the ozonation process for the color stripping of the reactive dyed fabric in a pilot scale process
The fresh water ecotoxicity was equivalent to 2 comparative toxic units (CTU), while the cancer human toxicity was calculated at

Summary

Introduction

Reactive dyes constitute nearly 50% of the worldwide market for the coloring of cellulose-based fibers [1]. The coloration industry faces some general problems such as faulty or uneven dyeing and the presence of color patches on the surface of the textile fabrics during coloration and subsequent processing operations [2,3] To rectify these problems, the normal approach practiced in the coloration industry is destructive stripping. In our LCA study based on normalized results, the atmospheric impacts, especially water resource depletion, exhibited the poorest performance among every environmental impact category. When we observed the midpoint of the experiments, we saw that E13 had lower impacts than the reference, which used less liquid oxygen for the ozone generation and less electricity, reducing the overall environmental impacts. We obtained less color stripping, as already discussed. (Tables 1 and 6)

Objectives

Discussion

Conclusion