ORGANIZATION OF INDUSTRIAL APPLICATION OF ACADEMIC RESEARCH ON BIO-CATALYTIC PRE- TREATMENT PROCESSES OF COTTON IPTB 2011/Milan/Italy Presentation March 3, 2011 Gerrit Bouwhuis

Cotton Annual production: 25 million ton Most important natural textile fibre Application: Garments Household Safety Technical Cotton: personalization and protection

Goal of pre-treatment  Prepare cotton for dyeing/printing/finishing  Objective of preparation:  Removal of starch(desizing)  Removal of waxes and pectins (scouring)  Removal of natural colour (bleaching)  Removal of impurities as ash, salts etc. (washing)  Resulting in:  Even whiteness  Even and sufficient hydrophilic properties

Starting point for this work

Aim of this research  Design of a novel, environmentally improved, industrial cotton pre-treatment process  Pre-requisites  No capital investment  Quality at least as good as conventional treatment  Full width treatment of the fabrics  Continuous treatment

Opportunities for industry  Development of a new innovative sustainable (bio)catalytic pre-treatment process for cotton on industrial scale.  Keywords  Bio-catalytic process  Benign treatment  Water reduction 20% (EuropaBio 2003)  Energy reduction20% (EuropaBio 2003)  Waste water reduction40% (europaBio 2003)  Sustainability

Development steps 1.Organisation of the collaboration 2.Research of the enzymatic treatment step 3.Research of the bleaching treatment step 4.Installed base/mechanical energy 5.Design and implementation of the new process

Organization of the collaboration I > 4 years < 2years < 1 year Academic or explorative research Innovative or applied research Development KNOW LEDGE TECHNO LOGY INFO PRODUCT PROCESS

Organization of the collaboration II  Know how institutes  University of TwenteAcademic research  Saxion University of Applied ScienceApplied Research  Industry  Royal TenCateFinisher  Vlisco/Gamma HoldingFinisher  TanatexChemicals

Organization of the collaboration III Academic or explorative research Innovative or applied research Development KNOW LEDGE TECHNO LOGY INFO PRODUCT PROCESS UTwente Saxion Tanatex Textile industry

Research of the enzymatic treatment step Starting point: The research of Agrawal Development:  Enzyme cocktail containing  Amylase  Cutinase  Pectinase  Operating window:  pH 8, T 30 – 50°C  Performance  Desizing and hydrophilicity

Starting point: Research of Topalovic  Development  The use of the bleaching agents: activators (manganese catalyst and NaOH)  Operating window:  Continuous and discontinuous  30-50°C process bleach and rinse temperature, pH 10,5  Performance:  Whiteness in CIE-lab Research of the bleaching treatment step

Installed base/mechanical energy Installed base for pad batch – hot bleach Aspects of mass transfer  Textile substrate (stagnant and convective region)  Squeezing model  Mass transfer model  Adsorption limitation in textile pores

Design and implementation of the new process I  Conventional  Desizing: Amylase  Scouring: NaOH (100°C rinse)  Bleaching: H 2 O 2 and NaOH  Washing (100°C)  High water consumption  High temperature  New process (lab scale)  Desizing: Amylase  Scouring: Pectinase and cutinase (30°C rinse)  Bleaching: H 2 O 2 and MnTACN or reduced NaOH  Washing (40°C)  Reduced water consumption  Reduced temperature

Design and implementation of the new process II

Design and implementation of the new process III * as measured in production

Conclusions  Low temperature rinsing after bio-scouring  Sufficient hydrophilicity  Sufficient pectin removal  Low temperature rinsing after bleaching  Whiteness to be improved  Reduced waste water pollution (38% reduction on COD)  Decrease in cost per kg fabric: € 0,08 (excl. effect of cost of chemicals) Collaboration supports implementation of new processes Bio-catalytic treatment is profitable!!

Thank you for your attention!! Questions Discussion