Description
The textile industry is regarded as a polluting industry (waste effluents, emission of greenhouse gases and generation of waste). The sub-sector of sizing and finishing is the greatest generator of pollutants. The aim of the project is to develop an environmentally sustainable process based on enzyme technology to give the cotton different functionalities without employing aqueous baths or temperature. The development of a process to functionalise cotton yarns and mixtures so as not to generate waste effluents or high temperatures is a challenge that can only be addressed through the use of enzyme technology, and more specifically known as XET enzyme, that will be able to chemically modify the structure of xyloglucan oligosaccharide with specific chemical groups, and then adsorb them permanently on the textile substrate conferring the desired properties. HIFESA will be supported by the two Spanish partners Biopolis, SL Biotechnology Company and AITEX Textile Technological Institute, as well as the Icelandic partner ICI Innovation Center Iceland. The main beneficiaries of the project results are consumers (green products) and the environment.
Summary of project results
Textile industry is a polluting industry, not only because of the large amounts of waste effluents generated, but by the emission of greenhouse gases and generation of large amounts of waste that is associated to this activity. In this sense, the subsector of sizing and finishing is the greatest contributor to generated pollutants. In order to get provide value to their products while maintaining the environmental component that characterizes HIFESA aimed to study the production of biotech-based product that applied on the fiber give it the desired properties, which behavior here would be fireproof or fire retardant and hydrophobicity or stain capacity . Therefore, the aim of the project was to develop an environmentally sustainable process based on enzyme technology to give the cotton different functionalities without employing aqueous baths or temperature. The results have been a method to apply the bio-product in a spinning process ant to obtain yarns with different functionality.
Summary of bilateral results