Cutting water use in textiles!

In a major research finding that would go a long way in conserving water in the water-intensive textile industry, researchers at Calicut University have come up with an eco-friendly process for manufacturing yarns. Researchers say that the novel approach for sizing and desizing cotton and polyester yarns through a dry process using liquid and super critical carbon dioxide and inexpensive sugar acetates will help the textile industry do away with huge amount of water currently used in the conventional process.

Sizing is the process of applying a protective adhesive coating upon the yarn to strengthen it to decrease breakages on the loom and attain maximum weaving efficiency. Conventional method of sizing involves drawing the yarn through a concentrated sizing solution – mostly starch and polyvinyl alcohol and then drying it.

After the weaving process the yarn has to be desized by washing it with water which requires up to 2,500-21,000 litres for 1,000 kg of cotton yarn and drying it involves an energy intensive process.