Sustainable Textile Processing with Zero Water Utilization Using Super Critical Carbon Dioxide Technology

Abstract

Water is a valuable resource for life because of its multifunctional properties. Thus, scarcity of water and augmented environmental awareness are worldwide concerns that result in a sharp escalation in prices for drinking and removal of wastewater. It is widely accepted that the textile sector is one of the highest water consumers. Traditional textile dyeing utilizes huge amounts of fresh water and the used water is disposed as effluent comprising dyes and various chemicals. Water is generally utilized as a solvent in many pretreatment and finishing textile processes in the sector, such as washing, scouring, bleaching dyeing, and finishing. Therefore, the researchers and innovative textile machinery companies have been trying to develop new technologies to dye the textile material with less water usage and even without utilizing any water (waterless dyeing technology). The elimination of the water processing and related chemicals would be an important advancement for the textile dyeing sector. The recent prominent process uses carbon dioxide (CO2) for dyeing textile substrates. It is a totally waterless dyeing process utilizing recycled carbon dioxide in certain temperature and pressure conditions. In this chapter, supercritical carbon dioxide (scCO2) technology usage in textile scouring, surface modification, desizing, bleaching, dyeing, and finishing processes is reviewed in detail, leading to waterless sustainable textile wet processing. Moreover, the recent commercial and technological developments regarding supercritical carbon dioxide (scCO2) technology are also given.