SUPERWOOL

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LIFE III Superwool Project

SUMMARY OF THE PROJECT

Sustainable, AOX-free Superwash Finishing of Wool Tops for the Yarn Production

Objectives

The washability of native wool and the guarantee for the felt-free Superwash standard of wool products is not achievable without any chemical treatments so far. Today the anti-felt equipment reached by the Chlorine-Hercosett-Process is the favourite and only economical way to serve these requirements in the yarn production. However, the environmental impacts of this technology are very crucial due to a high waste water pollution by AOX, an enormous consumption of fresh water and critical chemicals.

To prevent such negative effects in textile finishing this project aims to demonstrate the replacement of the Chlorine-Hercosett Process by a sustainable plasma pre-treatment of wool for the first time in a realistic application scale and to set a new BAT. The main goal of this new technology is the complete elimination of AOX-emissions and the dramatic decrease of used chemicals without any restrictions to the quality of wool and its industrial process ability. The objectives of the project are achieved if the preliminary defined qualitative properties of the treated wool and the requirements of environmental protection concept have been realised and evaluated.

Actions and means involved

With the proposed project RICHTER wants to transfer very promising results from former R&D activities into a working industrial application. If this succeeds, it would be possible to produce washable wool in a continuous and non-polluting procedure, for the first time. However to be successful the team has to overcome many challenges related to materials and construction. The work is based on a laboratory installation, which was developed in a former cooperation with the DWI and its fundamental results.

An emphasis of the work lies in the development and investigation of applicable electrode systems, which ensure a consistent and reproducible treatment of wool fibres. Thereby, it is substantially influenced by the geometry of the used electrodes, their arrangement, their coating and their electrical performance in continuous operation, which are to be evaluated under production-typical conditions. The resulting realizations will flow into a revised and up-scaled plasma unit, which permits a reliable and completely reproducible treatment of the wool with production-typical flow velocities. Last but not least the new unit will be integrated into the production to demonstrate the real time and real scale treatment.

Additionally, suitable resin systems for the anti-felt equipment have to be selected, enhanced and adapted to the new process parameters. Up to now, there exist only experiences with one special resin of Bayer, which have to be extended. Therefore another main goal of the project is to find the optimal parameters and conditions out of improved resin applications in the production scale in order to ensure the desired environmental compatibility. According to this, a complete renouncement of chemical aids should be preferred. Moreover, resuming studies and enhancements are intended to determine, which resin systems can be used additionally in order to improve the fibre quality, e.g. for more softness and a better grip, under material and economic criteria.

As a result of the project, a demonstration unit will be developed, which illustrates the entire process of yarn production by integrating the new anti-felt equipment. Thus the industrial utilisability of the procedure and an ecological revolution in the wool finishing should be proven.

Expected results

With the project RICHTER meets the requirement for a complete conversion of the yarn production to the AOX-free anti-felt equipment. Latest in June 2008, the demonstration of the complete production process by using the new plasma unit is expected, which reaches the quality of the Chlor-Hercosett Process and works without any AOX-indicated waste water pollution. The entire extent of the ecological improvements will be documented in an environmental monitoring program during the entire project.

The planned installation should be able to allow production-typical flow velocities and a 100% reproducibility of the process parameters. With the plasma-treatment the wool should meet the following demands and relevant standard:

Washable and completely felt-free – according to the defaults of the Superwash-standard
colourable without any restrictions
smooth processing in the downstream production steps
soft and full grip
If the projects succeeds at RICHTERthe environmental goals can be characterised by
an 100% elimination of AOX-emissions in the yarn production,
the reduction of total about 500 t of environmental hazardous additives p.a.,
the reduction of about 30,000 m³ of polluted waste water p. a.,
the first-time opportunity to use only eco-friendly additives for the first time without any restrictions to the wools quality,
cost savings because of the avoidance of waste water and pollution fees.