EU achieves water-saving technology breakthrough in textile dyeing and finishing production process

Traditional textile dyeing and finishing production processes consume a lot of water resources. Under normal circumstances, the textile is colored by the printing and dyeing process, and then after several rounds of cleaning to remove the fuel residue, the waste water containing the reactive dye component or the harmful compound can only be directly sent to the sewage treatment plant for treatment, which is expensive. To this end, the EU 2020 Horizon (H2020) provides 3.8 million euros in funding, with a total R&D investment of 4.8 million euros, by the EU's four member states (General Coordination), Italy, Belgium and the Czech Republic's major textile printing and dyeing companies , as well as European clothing and textiles. The Federation, the joint scientific and technological community formed the European ECWRTI R & D team. After more than two years of joint technical research, we have successfully achieved breakthroughs in water-saving technology in textile dyeing and finishing production, which can effectively save more than 90% of water consumption in textile printing and dyeing enterprises. The process has recently been certified by the European Commission for green production technology.

The core of water-saving technology adopts electrocoagulation method, which can effectively remove 93-96% of dye residue in waste water of printing and dyeing enterprises, and then purify and treat waste water through large-flux reverse osmosis ultrafiltration membrane technology. Up to 90% of the water consumption of printing and dyeing enterprises can be reused, and the remaining 10% of the water consumption is lost during the evaporation process. The technology has two major advantages: one is to reduce the water consumption of printing and dyeing enterprises by more than 90%; the second is to reduce the cost of waste water treatment. Other advantages include: relatively low energy consumption costs; no changes to existing production processes; no additional harmful compounds; and protection of the environment.

At present, the ECWRTI R&D team has selected two textile printing and dyeing companies in Belgium and Italy to carry out pilot demonstration projects. According to the technical and economic feasibility report of the R&D team, innovative water-saving technologies can recover investment costs within 2-4 years.