Increasing the efficiency and sustainability of textile processes: a catalytic approach

About this Research Topic

Background

The textile industry is a global pillar of the manufacturing sector, accounting for about 2% of the world's Gross Domestic Product. However, the economic turnover goes hand in hand with the increasing pollution level caused by the apparel and upholstery production processes, in addition to the "fast fashion" trend, namely the current tendency of the readily available, inexpensively-made fashion. Indeed, textile manufacturing requires an intensive consumption of natural resources (e.g., water and soils for animal breeding or lignocellulosic fibers crops) and energy along the supply chain (i.e., textile fibers' transformation and transport). Moreover, it drives the generation of water pollution, air emissions, soil degradation, and a massive flow of post-industrial and post-consumer textile wastes.



Catalytic-based methods can be adopted in the textile sector to minimize the environmental impact of various production steps without losing efficiency. The treatments that the fabrics can undergo (dyeing, functional finishing and even washing) can be improved by using catalysts belonging to different compound families, such as nanomaterials or biocatalysts (i.e., enzymes). The depollution of textile industry effluents, especially from organic substances like dyes, is another cutting-edge topic in which different remediation technologies have been widely employed, such as photocatalysis, thermocatalysis, Fenton-like-mediated reactions, etc. The valorization of textile waste generated throughout the supply chain can also be coadjuved by catalysis. For instance, fibers that are discarded (also when they do not meet the requirements to be transformed into fabrics) can be catalytically converted into valuable compounds. In the case of natural sources, one example is cotton cellulose, which can be the starting biomass for originating platform molecules or other carbon-based compounds. Another eco-compatible practice, in which catalysis plays a major role, is textile recycling of synthetic fibers: catalysts are necessary to break down the polymeric network into the original components that become then available to synthesize new products. To summarize, this Research Topic aims to get an insight into the most recent and relevant catalytic strategies applicable within the textile sector to lower its ecological footprint.



The Research Topic invites original research and short communications on all those catalytic processes that gravitate around the textile industry. Works on the sustainability assessment, such as LCA, of such catalytic processes are also welcomed. Submissions of review-type manuscripts, critically commenting on novel findings about the Research Topic, are accepted.

Article types and fees

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Data Report
• Editorial
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• Perspective
• ... View all formats

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Article types

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Data Report
• Editorial
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• Perspective
• Review
• Technology and Code

Keywords: Textile processes, Sustainability, Textile Engineering, Finishing, Fibers, Pollutant remediation

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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