What Is Sustainable chemistry? Use sustainable chemicals Instead of conventional chemicals with their benefits.

Introduction

Climate change is one of the major concerns of the 21st century. Serious efforts are being made to address the issue of global climate change. Being one of the major polluting industries of the world, the textile and apparel industry has caught the central attention. From fiber production to the consumer use phase, the industry releases a huge amount of carbon throughout the supply chain. Increased awareness is needed to protect the environment and ecosystems. The interested parties in the environmental protection policies are no longer just environmental groups, consumers, and producers but also retailers, exporters, importers, traders, technological societies, and national, regional, and international authorities.

Sustainable Chemistry

Sustainable chemistry is a scientific concept that seeks to improve the efficiency of natural resources used to meet human needs for chemical products and services. Sustainable chemistry involves the design, manufacture, and use of efficient, effective, safe, and more environmentally friendly chemical products and processes.

Sustainable chemistry is a process that stimulates innovation across all sectors to design and discover new chemical, manufacturing processes, and product stewardship practices that will provide enhanced performance and enhanced quality in order to protect and enhance human health and the environment.

Benefits of Sustainable Chemistry

The environmental and social benefits of sustainable chemistry are-

a. Avoiding the use of persistent, bio-accumulative, toxic, and otherwise hazardous materials;

b.  Using renewable resources and decreasing consumption of non-renewable resources,

c. Minimizing the negative environmental impacts of chemical processing and manufacturing;

d. Providing technologies that are economically competitive and advantageous to industry.

Effect of polluted water on Humans

Waterborne diseases cause 3, 5755,000 deaths a year and most of these children are contagious diseases that can be spread through contaminated water. Previously unknown allergens are being blamed for the use of chemical finishes in clothing. The environmental parameters of all consumer goods, including awareness and demand, gain significant importance. An eco-label provides brief information about the qualities of an environmentally-related product. This enables consumers to identify those products in an environmentally safe manner; which are made using environmentally friendly materials and do not contain chemicals harmful to the user. Since eco-friendliness is additional product quality, it can be used for marketing and advertising purposes.

Some of the eco-labels are described below-

a.   Gots

b.    Blue sign standard

c.    Greenpeace

d.    Restricted Substance List

e.    MRSL (Manufacturing Restricted Substance List)

f.     ZDHC

g.    Oekotex

h.    REACH

i.      Cradle to cradle

j.      Green screen

k.    Higg Index.

Green Pathways in textile processing

Textile the industry has undergone a drastic transformation as per the requirements of customers and ecology. As the stringent norms are fixed on the characteristics of discharged effluent, there is always a demand for chemicals/auxiliaries which can reduce the pollution load of effluent.

Alkali-free scouring process

It removes the pectins to a level just enough that it facilitates the even absorbency of the yarn. The presence of pectin leads to strength retention, lesser hairiness, and a smoother surface profile. It offers cleaner processes, replaces chemicals, reduces TDS, and saves time, water, and energy throughout the production chain.

Neutral bleaching process

The bleaching process is one of the most important pretreatment processes of textile processing by which fabric’s reflectance, whiteness, and absorbency are enhanced. The conventional bleaching process is carried out at higher pH say 11-12 pH. In neutral Bleaching i.e. pH of 6-7, the cellulose material tends to swell significantly less than under alkaline conditions, which means better liquor penetration and more effective removal of mineral impurities and metals. It replaces caustic during the process so an additional neutralization step is avoided.

Clay-based products

Clay minerals are very reactive because of their large surface area and because they commonly carry a charge. The charge that originates at clay surfaces is usually due to chemical reactions that occur at the surface of minerals, but it can also be caused by the adsorption of surfactant ions. Due to the large surface area of clay, it can adsorb all kinds of impurities natural and synthetic. It can be very effective in the removal of oil even silicone oil.

Denim processing

To give a distressed denim look many types of washing are given to denim fabric. In the stone washing process, the stone could cause the problem of the environmental disposition of waste of grit produced by stones. The stone-washing process damages large, expensive laundry machines. Cellulases are used to provide that distressed worn-out look to denim fabric. Cellulose is environmentally friendly compared to pumice stones. Laccase is a new enzyme class introduced in denim finishing. It is a useful enzyme for the eco-friendly bleaching process of blue denim.

Acid-stable enzyme and protonic treatment in CBR

Pinhole damage is a serious problem faced by textile manufacturers. Pinhole damage is mainly concerned with cellulosic materials in processing while carrying out bleaching with hydrogen peroxide at high temperatures. In bleaching presence of heavy metal ions and certain other impurities reduce bleaching action. Commercial amylase works at pH 6-7. But it has limitations like stability in acidic conditions, starch conversion rate, contamination risk, etc. Acid-stable amylase can be combined with protonic treatment which is a huge advantage for the textile process house.

Acetic acid replacement vs soda ash replacement

Conventional acetic acid has many disadvantages. It can damage cellulosic substrates, capable of weakening cellulose easily, special precautions are needed while handling. Besides this, it has an adverse effect on laborers, increases the load on effluent, and storage hazards over a period of time. An eco-friendly buffer can be used to overcome these problems. Normally soda ash is the most commonly used alkali in reactive dyeing. As much as 50% of the total cost of a reactive dyeing process is attributed to the washing-off stages to remove unfixed or hydrolyzed dyes and treatment of the resulting effluent. Under this circumstance, dyeing without conventional Soda Ash can results in much lower TDS in effluent causing much less trouble in effluent treatment.

Acidic washing off

Reactive dyes have better properties in terms of fastness. Colored reactive pigments of the cellulosic substrate occur under alkaline conditions. Washing-off agents in order to retain the fastness properties. Using an acidic washing-off agent we can avoid the neutralization step after dyeing along with improvement in fastness properties.

Sodium hydrosulfite-free reduction clearing

The dyeing of polyester is exclusively carried out by the use of dispersed dyes, but due to the highly hydrophobic nature of the polyester fiber, after-treatments are required for optimal satisfactory fastness. During dyeing, particularly of deep shades, there will invariably be some dye particles that adhere to the fiber surfaces or are retained by yarns without penetration into the fiber. These mechanically held particles result in decreased fastness to washing, rubbing, sublimation, and dry cleaning. The reduction clear process is designed to remove the surplus dye and dyeing auxiliaries (e.g. migration inhibitors, carrier residues, and surfactants) without altering the shade of the dying.

Amino silicone

The use of silicones for softening fabrics has been well-known for quite some time. Mostly amino-modified silicones are used in the textile industry as amino groups provide a better affinity to textile fibers.

All-in-one product

In recent times, many end-users demand different properties in a single product during processing. Such products not only avoid the usage of different chemicals but also helps to reduce confusion about dosages that need to be added. Also, no need to remember a sequence of chemicals to be added. Such kind of chemicals helps to save utilities like energy, time, and water. It also helps to reduce the load of effluent.

Eco-friendly printing package

Using more environmentally friendly preparation and auxiliary products for example to reduce or eliminate formaldehyde on fabric is currently one of the major concerns in the textile printing industry. Recent efforts have been made to reduce the formaldehyde content of or the free formaldehyde generated by binders or totally eliminate the formaldehyde component of binders for the environmental reasons.