Quantification and evaluation of chemical footprint of woollen textiles

Abstract

The chemical pollutants discharged in the production processes of textile products cause severe impact on the\nenvironment. The chemical footprint (ChF) methodology provides a new way to quantify the toxicity impacts caused by\nchemical pollutants. ChF does well in identifying priority chemical pollutants and helping enterprises to select greener\nchemicals to reduce the environment impacts. In this study, the ChF of woollen yarn were assessed with the data that\ncollected from the production processes. The results showed that the ChF of dyeing process (4.10E+06 l) accounted for\nthe largest proportion, because a large number of auxiliaries were used in the dyeing process to prevent uneven dyeing\nand colour difference, followed by scouring (7.79E+05 l) and finishing (8.11E+03 l). Among all the discharged chemical\npollutants, polyoxyethylene nonyl phenyl ether (1.37E+06 l) caused the most ecotoxicity severe impact on the\nenvironment due to its high bioaccumulation and high toxicity to ecosystem, followed by sulfuric acid (1.03E+06 l).\nSodium chloride and hydrogen peroxide were the two substances that caused the least environmental load. The overall\nuncertainty caused by toxicity prediction data accounting for 20.2% of the total ChF, and the uncertainty of the scouring\nprocess was the most. The results are referable for wool textiles producers to enhance the textile chemicals\nmanagement.