Preface

Environment and energy are two of the most important issues facing humanity today. The textile industry consumes a considerable amount of energy and water during the manufacturing processes. Energy and water consumption is closely associated with environmental issues, because production also means environmental pollution and water and energy shortage. Environmental problems caused by the textile industry can be studied under four classes: air, water, solid waste pollution, and noise. Waste management for solving environmental problems is realized by the utilization of cleaner technologies, reuse, material recycling, material and energy recovery, storage without recycling, or disposal by burning.

In this book, the relationship between the textile industry and the environment is examined from four different viewpoints, for which the basis is the waste management steps specified above. Recycling of spinning mill wastes, ozone usage that provides less chemical and water utilization, reuse of treated water in the dyeing processes, and approaches in the treatment of waste waters of dyeing plants and finishing factories are solutions offered to reduce environmental pollution arising from textile production processes. On the other hand, application of phase change materials to textile materials is examined in one chapter. The possibility of utilizing textile materials to which phase change materials are applied, not only for comfort purposes but also as energy storage materials, means that technical textiles could be a solution for energy storage. Briefly, the relationship between the textile industry and the environment both as a source of and as a solution to pollution is mentioned in this book.

I thank all the authors who have contributed to this book and hope that it will be helpful to the readers.

> **Dr. Ayşegül Körlü** Professor, Ege University, Engineering Faculty, Department of Textile Engineering, İzmir, Turkey

**1**

**Chapter 1**

**Abstract**

**1. Introduction**

Sustainable Production Methods

The textile industry is part of the industries that continuously harm the environment because of the high water consumption and the presence of various pollutants in the wastewater. Wastewater treatment is lacking or includes only physical treatment in underdeveloped and developing countries due to installation and operating costs of a treatment plant. As a result, a broad spectrum of hazardous and toxic substances, such as (azo) dyes, heavy metals, acids, soda, and aromatic hydrocarbons, pollute precious sources of clean water, in which untreated water is discharged. The main solution to this problem is to reduce the treatment cost. For this purpose, the process should be optimized to reduce the amount of water and chemicals. In this chapter, first studies on the reference document (BAT) referred by the European Council are reviewed. Minimizing production costs, obtaining high-quality products, and reducing the amount and the pollutant content of wastewater are complex problems that cannot be solved by the conventional optimization methods. Therefore, nonconventional optimization methods applied on the textile

processes are also reviewed from the latest studies in the literature.

**Keywords:** sustainability, BAT, optimization, metaheuristics, genetic algorithm

Textile industry is the foremost sector in terms of the discharged volume and the composition of the wastewater [1]. Most of the textile production processes, such as scouring, washing, dyeing, bleaching, sizing, and finishing, consume large volumes of fresh water and discharge large volumes of effluent which are generally with intense color, high concentration of organic compounds, and large variations in composition [2, 3]. Especially wet process, which has five main stages including pretreatment, dyeing, finishing, drying, and quality control, is the major part of the textile industry due to the long processing time and technical complexity [4]. Specific water consumption range is given as 10–645 L/kg product for the textile industry and 21–645 L/kg for the mills with finishing and dyeing processes in (ref BAT-EC). In another source, it is reported that the consumed amount of water could reach to 932 L/kg product depending on the fiber and applied technology [5–7]. In recent years, depleted resources, global warming, and climate change resulting in challenging regulations enforce manufacturing enterprises to give efforts to reduce the waste of the processes, which motivate firms for the sustainable (cleaner) production. Besides environmental considerations, the effective planning of the production is also obligatory to reduce the production costs to be able to compete with other manufacturers. Moreover, an empirical study built on the

in Textile Industry

*Miray Emreol Gönlügür*
