New process for conversion of hazardous industrial effluent of ceramic industry into nanostructured sodium carbonate and their application in textile industry

Abstract

Increase in industrialization as a tool to become global leader has led to an exponential rise in environmental pollution. The present study describes a process developed to extract nanocrystalline sodium carbonate from chemical industry effluents, which contributes to wealth creation from hazardous waste. Sodium carbonate is a high demand product because of its applications in detergents, dyeing, glass, and paper manufacturing. In the present work, we have extracted nanostructured sodium carbonate using industrial waste (alkaline solution of silicates, obtained from ceramic industry) and carbon dioxide (a major component of flue gas effluent from power plants). Here we have collected waste from ceramic industries, which is highly corrosive (pH 13–14) and disposal of such waste is dangerous to the environment and needs to be taken special care. Pure carbon dioxide has been purged in collected industrial waste to get nanoparticles and flakes structure of sodium carbonate at room temperature. The use of the nanostructured sodium carbonate in the dyeing of textiles was encouraging. Significantly, higher dyeing efficacy was observed compared to the fabric dyed in the absence of sodium carbonate (Na2CO3). The nanocrystalline particles show much better color strength than bulk sodium carbonate when K/S value was compared. Na2CO3 with the minimum particle size (26 nm) results in the maximum color strength (K/S = 14.49).