ECOLOGICAL METHOD OF WOOL WASHING

Abstract

The textile industry is considered a polluting industry due to the use of chemicals in production and excessive use of energy and water, plus the generation of toxic waste. In present, the significance of environmental pollution and related problems in the world had led to development and application of environmental friendly production methods that less polluted environment.Wool fibers are subjected to a number of water-based treatments that pollutes the environment. In a desire to make the wool industry to become more sustainable, this paper reports an ecological wool washing method by using three alkaline solutions based on ash obtained from burning wood type beech/oak/hornbeam and water. The mixture solutions used for manually wool washing has different concentration of lye (10% to 30%) and pH, respectively. The higher the pH of the alkaline solution, the more impurities are removed.The optical images of washed wool fibers presented in the paper show no damage on surface structure. Wastewater collected after wool washing was used as natural fertiliser for watering seeds of grass. Some measurements on blades of grass were done to see the effect of wastewater. The number of grass blades/unit area, average lenght and the uniformity regarding the lenght increased when watering was done with wastewater.

Keywords

• wool
• alkaline solution
• ash
• ph
• washing
• blades of grass