Abstract

In the European Union, consumers discard every year 5.8 million tons of textiles. At the moment only about 1.5 million tons (25%) of these post consumer textiles are recycled by charity and industrial enterprises. About 1million tons are exported directly to Third World countries: about 0.5 million tons are converted to various products and sold inside the European Union. The remaining 4.3 million tons (75%) of these post consumer textiles are land filled or burnt in municipal waste incinerators, representing an enormous unused source of raw materials. Of the 500,000 tons that is recycled, the main applications are wiping rags, fibre production and application in the paper industry. The aim of this project is to increase the amount of post consumer textile that is being recycled by 10%. In other words the recycling percentage rises from 25% to 35%, e.g. 500.000 tons yearly extra..

Three technologies will be used for the identification of fibrous raw material and dye/finish:

• Near Infra Red (NIR)
• Thermal Impulse Response (TIR)
• Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS).

Combined these three techniques should be able to identify the raw material of the textile with a 90% accuracy. For the identification of textile raw material two parallel developments will take place. The first will be the development of the LIBS/TIR technology. A combination of these technologies will enable the proper identification of the raw material and any hazardous components in either the dye or the textile. IN addition the NIR technology will be further developed and adapted for identification of textiles and textile finishes. Since NIR is a technique that has been successful applied in many areas it is believed that it can also be applied in the textile industry. The concept of identifying fibrous raw material of textiles and sorting it into different fractions is new. However this concept can be applied in other areas as well. Not only post consumer textiles can be recycled, but other textile waste as well. In addition, the streams of identified textile can be used for the development of new end products in other industries, while the developed identification methods can also be used as well:

• in quality control
• in verifying the nature of the blends that are Imported from other countries.

Contacts

Coordinator

• P S G J BOS / S. Frankenhuis & Zn. B.V NETHERLANDS

Participant

• AIS Sommer GERMANY
• Kai HOPPNER / Hörotron GmbH GERMANY
• Eberhard KÖHLER / Institut für Allgemeiner Maschinenbauund Kunstofftechnik / GERMANY
• Ingo BURMESTER / Laser Zentrum Hannover eV GERMANY
• TNO Industrial Technology Department of Polymer Technology / NETHERLANDS
• K KLIFMAN / Tecno-Partners B.V. NETHERLANDS
• Ursula SCHUMACHER / Wolfgang Mayer Messtechnik GERMANY