Vol. 10, Special Issue 11 (2021)

Author(s):
Diksha Bisht, Saroj Yadav, Neelam M Rose, Arpita Grover and Shalini Rukhaya

Abstract:
An eco-friendly strategy is being implemented in all fields, including textiles due to the current surge in environmental concerns. Changes in textile finishing processes have been implemented in order to follow this strategy, resulting in a minimum loss of natural resources and reduced hazardous waste. Fierce competition and rising globalization have created a huge challenge for textile researchers and manufacturers in the development of green functional textiles. The increasing expansion of technical textiles and their applications has created several opportunities for the use of innovative finishes. The Indian textile sector consumes 200–300 m³ of water for every ton of treated textiles, resulting in massive wastewater production. Traditional textile pre-treatment procedures such as desizing, scouring, and bleaching need large amount of chemicals as well as water, of them unexhausted chemicals are drained into the effluent stream. Enzymatic desizing, solvent desizing, ultrasonic treatment, and plasma treatment are a few environmentally acceptable ways for desizing textile materials. Enzymes such as pectinase, arylesterase, xylanases, cellulases, laccases, and ligninases are used in bioscouring or enzymatic scouring to remove the impurities from textile fabrics. Ultrasound technology decreases water and detergent usage while also shortening scouring time. Lipase, lactase, and cellulase enzymes are utilised in the bio bleaching process. There are other eco-friendly finishing processes utilising nanotechnology and microencapsulation, such as biosingeing, biopolishing, and antimicrobial finishes. The major goal of applying new technologies and ideas to textile finishes is to decrease the detrimental impact of chemicals used in traditional textile finishing processes on human health and the environment. Specialty chemicals and laser technologies have proven to be a boon for lowering pollutant load in an environmentally acceptable and sustainable manner.