Page 36 - New Cloth Market November 2022 Digital Edition

Strategies for Removing Chemical Finishes from Post-Consumer Outdoor Fabrics

Comparing spectra of post-consumer
“A” sample with those of acrylic fab-
rics treated with different amounts of
finishing, it could be estimated that the
finishing of this post-consumer awning
is between 6.25 and 2.5% (fluorocar-
bon resin).

This finishing amount of waste acrylic
can be the result of a slight degrada-
tion process over time of sunlight and
atmospheric agents.
FTIR spectra of post-consumer fabrics
showed that all the treatments per-
formed on finished “A” samples provide
a certain reduction in the infrared
curves of finishing.
However, the combination of treat-
ments evidenced the appearance of
broad peaks in the region 1560 and
1670 cm-1 ascribable to slight chang-
es in the chemical structure of acrylic
fibres:
• aromatic C=N structures leading to
intramolecular cyclization;
• conjugated structures (HC=N–
N=CH) responsible for intermolec-
ular cross-linking.
The singular acid hydrolysis was not
efficient in the removal of finishing
from fabric "B".
Both combined chemical treatments of
fabrics provided the removal of finish-
ing since the IR spectra of the so-treat-
ed samples are almost overlapped with
no-finished acrylic fabric.
As evident by the histogram, all per-
formed treatments on both “A” and “B”
post-consumer fabrics proved to be
efficient in removing finishing, except
the singular acid hydrolysis for "B" fab-
rics. icals removal from finished acrylic textiles, with innovative investigation
and processing techniques was developed to obtain a fully compatible recy-
The not detectable PFCs values ob- cled acrylic textile for reuse;
tained for “A” and “B” samples treated
- The combination of both chemical treatments and photodegradation pro-
with all the combined chemical treat-
cess of post-consumer fabrics reveals the total removal of both finishing,
ments and dry conditions confirmed the
thus obtaining cleaned fabrics for a "second life" to be used with environ-
efficacy of the removal processes,
mentally friendly finishing.
which led to "cleaned" acrylic fabrics
for a "second life". The excellent results obtained suggest several impacts expected concerning:
Conclusions: - Increased recycling rate and reduced landfill and incineration;
- A new process for hazardous chem- - Reduced risk of retaining hazardous substances in recycled materials;

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