Environmental impacts of chemical/ecotechnological/biotechnological hydrophilisation of polyester fabrics

Research works on ecotechnologies (plasma treatments) or biotechnologies (enzymatic treatments) are being developed to substitute the alkaline soda process used to improve hydrophilicity of polyester fibres. Environmental impact assessment is necessary to validate these new strategies. Partial “gate to gate” LCA was used to compare three hydrophilisation processes: 1- chemical using sodium hydroxide, 2-air atmospheric plasma and 3- lipase enzyme based process. tory experiments were carried to determine input and output data flows for optimum hydrophilic treatment of a particular polyester (PET) fabric using the three different processes. The functional unit was defined as “treatment of 1 kg of polyester fabric to achieve specific hydrophilic properties, measured by values of water contact angle and capillary uptakes. Generic and specific data bases were also used to determine flows, and the ReCiPe method used to convert all flows into environmental impacts. ergy related impact categories (“Ionising radiation”, “Climate change”, and “Fossil depletion values”) are the highest for all three processes, but air plasma treatment seems to be the most favourable for all impacts. For the enzymatic process, though very high degree of hydrophilisation can be reached compared to the soda treatment, higher environmental impacts are due to energy demanding enzyme deactivation process used. l LCA seems an interesting tool to assess process impacts at research stage, and to reorientate future research works.