]LSMITH

TEXTILE
PROCESSING
"This page is Intentionally Left Blank"
 TEXTILE
PROCESSING

J. L. Smith

ABHISHEK PUBLICATIONS
CHANDIGARH - 17 (INDIA).
First Edition 2009
Cot>~ght Puhli!'her
ISBN : 978-00-001-6992-1
Published by
Abhishek Publications
S.c.o. 57-59, Sector 17-C.
CHANDIGARH - 17
r() : 707562, Fax: 0172-704668
E-mail: abhpub@yahoo.com

Laser Typesetting at :
Patlipat Communications
# 16, Sector 15-A. Chandigarh.
Printed lit . Mehra Offset, Delhi
 Contents

I
.k

I. Textile Industry
2. Textile Fibres 37
3. Textile Dyeing 57
4. Textile Printing 76
5. Sewing Technology 100
6. Texile Finishing 122
"This page is Intentionally Left Blank"
 1
Textile Industry

Energy in the textile industry is mostly used in the forms of:

electricity, as a common power source for machinery, cooling
and temperature control systems, lighting, office equipment,
etc.; oil as a fuel for boilers which generate steam; liquified
petroleum gas; coal; and city gas. While the significance of
energy conservation awareness is relatively easily understood at
home, when a program is introduced into a factory to promote
it, its thoro!lgh implementation tends to be delayed at an early
stage.
Therefore, for its actual course of implementation. it is
desired to devise company-wide coordinated measures similar
to QC activities at factories. Also, in order to promote energy
saving measures efficiently, it is found to be effuctive to
separately consider general management techniques for
"rational use of energy" and process-specific techniques to be
developed in each specialized technical field.
Since energy management is relevant to a wide range of
departments within a company, it is necessary to enhance the
awareness, improve the knowledge and obtain the participation
and cooperation of everybody involved in the production
2 Textile Printing

process. Therefore, while it is necessary for engineers and

technicians with specialized technical knowledge to play a
central role in energy conservation efforts, the implementation
of an energy conservation program itself should not be left to a
handful of specialists or specialized sections.
Rather, it is desirable to address the task company-wide,
for example by setting up an 'Energy Management Committee'.
Due to its nature of operations, the share of lighting in
electricity use is relatively high. After the switch from tungsten
bulbs to tluorescent lamps achieved considerable electricity
savings, electricity-saving fluorescent lamps have been
developed and marketed for further improvements, including
those capable of reducing electricity use by several percent for
the same level of illumination.
In general, the effectiveness of illumination is influenced
by various factors, such as the intensity of light source, the
reflection coefficient and shape of the reflective fitting (lamp
shade), the layout of the room to be illuminated, interior finish,
color and the distance from the light source. Therefore, it is
important to re-examine whether the light source is utilized in
the most efficient way and take electricity saving measures, if
necessary, ,such as reducing the number of lamps in use by
switching from global lighting to local lighting as much as
possible.
The textile industry uses a vast number of relatively small
electric motors. Notably, while a conventional machine was
driven by a single motor with the generated mechanical power
transmitted to various parts of the machine in a collective
manner, many modern machines utilize multiple motors with a
control board controlling the movement of each motor, which
is directly coupled to a machine part to drive it independently
from others.
Textile Illdustry 3

This is also a rationalized feature in terms of energy

saving. However, regarding the selection of each motor,
emphasis has been placed on mechanical performance, resulting
in a motor with an excessive capacity. This leaves considerable
room for re-examination from a energy conservation point of
view. In the textile industry, electric heating has largely been
replaced by other methods (steam, gas heating, or direct or
indirect fired heating) for some time in order to achieve cost
reductions.
However, since electric heating only requires a small
initial investment as a result of convenience and simplicity in
equipment constmction, it is still used for small capacity local
heating purposes. Therefore, it is desirable to conduct a
comparative investigation into alternative heating methods,
such as far-infrared radiation heating, high frequency dielectric
heating and microwave heating.
Fuels utilized in the textile industry have already gone
through a switch-over from coal to oil. More recently, efficient
energy use is under investigation, including the revival of coal
on the way to a further move from oil to liquefied and city
gases, while reflecting various fuel prices.
In selecting fuels, those with good flue gas characteristics
in addition to high calorific value and ease of combustion are
desired, so that air pollution can be prevented as much as
possible. By and large, boilers used in the Japanese textile
industry have experienced a change from Lancastrian- or
Scotch-type tubular or smoke tube to water-tube boilers.
As a result, boiler efficiency has improved from the
conventional 60's to 70's of percentage points to as high as the
90's. Since high performance boilers are prone to a rapid
growth of scales inside their water tubes, feed water
management becomes important. Furthermore, these boilers
4 Textile Printing

have small amounts of retained water and high evaporation

speeds so that many aspects of t}1eir operation are automated,
including feed water and combust on management.
The noted feature of steam use in the textile industry is
that the amount of steam involved is not so large but the
locations where steam is required are widespread so that steam
losses due to heat radiation from steam transportation pipes and
pressure drops are considerable. Therefore. for steam
transportation over long distances, high pressure and small-
diameter rather than low pressure and large-diameter piping is
desired, with pressure reducing valves placed as necessary to
regulate the steam pressure at the point of use, thereby curbing
heat losses.
Also, as pressure losses aiound bends are great, it is
desirable to make their radii large. In order to prevent steam
leaks from joints due to the thermal expansion of the pipe,
expansion joints should be placed where required. Furthermore,
in order to maintain the temperature inside the valve, tank and
treatment tank as well as the piping, it is necessary to install
them heat-insulated, using appropriate heat insulating materials,
so as to efficiently use steam while preventing heat losses.
Since live steam is often used in dyeing factories,
fluctuations in steam use during working hours are large. On
the other hand, since high performance water tube boilers and
once-through boilers are designed such that water retained
inside the boiler is very little, the boiler cannot react to
momentary and sudden load changes, while responding to
automatically controlled slow load changes is not a problem.
In such a case, a steam accumulator can be installed
midway through the heat transporting pipe. between the boiler
and the heat consuming load, in order to store excess steam
when the load is light by transforming it to heated water. This
Textile Industry 5

then transforms the heated water back to steam when the load
is heavy in order to reinforce supply to the load.
This allows the boiler to continuously operate with the
average load and is quite advantageous in view of energy
saving. So far, after its heat energy is consumed, steam has
been drained off. However, in view of energy saving, it is
necessary to collect and recycle the heat energy carried by the
drain water.
In each production process of the textile industry, the
heating and cooling of gases and liquids as media of heat are
frequently required. This is done through heat exchange
between different fluids, and in order to avoid contamination or
.chemical reaction due to their direct contact, heat exchangers
are used to carry out indirect heating and cooling.
It is important to use the right heat exchanger for the
intended purpose. Energy saving is an operation to grasp the
actual situation of energy use in a factory precisely and
quantitatively and to carry out improvement measures in order
to rationalize and economize on it.
While measuring instruments are needed to obtain
quantitative data, it will become more and more important to
investigate the use of sophisticated measuring instruments
based on recent developments in mechanical and electronic
engineering, combined with automatic control systems.
Progress in production rationalization is achieved through the
implementation of a comprehensive set of measures, including
energy conservation technologies as the centerpiece measure,
along with time management, labor saving. natural resources
saving and space saving.
It ha~ been frequently pointed out that, along with
management techniques described earlier, the improvement and
development of process-specific techniques on energy
6 Textile Printillg

conservation greatly contribute to the rationalization of

production. The process-specific techniques relating to energy
saving are summarized for each specialized technical field.
Exhibiting relatively large-scale structural forms in the
textile industry, this division has already reached a high level
of production rationalization, as is well known, it is
technologically aiming at diversification into such high value-
added goods as super extra-fine fiber and inorganic functional
fiber, commonly referred to as shingosen. In particular, the
following techniques relate to energy saving:

Raw material production process Implementation of energy

saving through improvements in the process and reaction
conditions
Polymerization process Reduction' in polymerization time
by means of high efficiency catalysts, polymerization
methods, etc.
Spinning process
Promotion of energy saving through combining the POY (Pre-
oriented Yarn: Yarn with some stability with its molecules
partially having gone through orientation) and DTY (Draw
Textured Yarn: false twisted yarn produced while drawing
POY yarn) methods and an expanded use in multi-folded
spinning yarn.
The factories built during the high growth period have
large margins and allowances for production increase so that
high losses would result if production decreased. Therefore,
suitably sized factories should be constructed. Regarding
technological trends in spinning, moves towards high speed and
large package size have been investigated in order to achieve
labor saving through as much automation as possible.
Textile Industry 7

I I
-1- I
Ii:

E: Eltclrldty

Figure: I Example of Typical Spinning Processes and Energy Use

8 Textile Printillg

As a result, energy consumption has been gradually increasing.

However, in view of price competition with overseas
companies, further labor saving as well as energy saving is
desired. Namely, it can be seen that a modern factory as a
means of achieving production rationalization requires
approximately three time as much electricity as a traditional
one, with electricity consumption particularly increasing in the
air-conditioning plant.
In terms of processing operations, fine spinning, as the
main operation of the spinning process, consumes a large
amount of electricity. Thus, energy saving measures are
required in these fields. For the fine spinning operation,
electricity is consumed in driving the spindles, packaging,
spinning, drafting, and operating the lifting and cleaning
mechanisms.
It is desired to curb the increase of electricity
consumption as much as possible by setting an optimal
condition for each of these electricity usages. Although as an
ideal working environment a room temperature less than 30°C
is desirable, in cases where the working environment has been
drastically improved in most other aspects with work load also
reduced, a slightly increased room temperature may be
permitted.
As has been reported, there was a case where raising the
regulated temperature from 30°C to 32°C resulted in a
reduction in the electric power demand of a carrier with a
contract demand of some 8,000 kW by 190 kW. Also, there are
many instances of seasonal switch-over from a damper to a
pulley as a means of readjusting the blown air volume; this is
in order to recycle the air sucked from the processing machine
for each operation through a filter back to the same room, and
it is therefore necessary to recheck the locations of fans for
suction and returning.
Textile Industry 9

While synthetic-fiber textured-yarn is mostly produced

with false twisting machines, its history of rationalization is
characterized by challenges for high speed operation. As their
operating speeds increased, driving and heat-curing motors and
and other peripheral equipment became larger, accompanied by
an inevitable increase in electricity consumption.

E: Electrlcfty
Two fold yam

Figllre:2 Twisting Process alld Energy Use

Although this may be acceptable as long as the production

improvement resulting from a high speed operation covers the
increase in electricity costs, reductions in energy cost would
surface as an avoidable urgent task, should a sharp increase in
electricity charge occur. It can reasonably be said that the
major form of energy consumed in the production of synthetic
finished-yarn is electricity.
Although the amount of electricity consumed in each
piece of equipment varies with factory scale and the type of
false twist machine, and therefore cannot be treated in a
standardized manner, generally accepted average values may be
taken as 3.5 kWh/kg for a single heater system and 5.0 kWhlkg
for a double heater system-as one report suggests.
10 Textile Printing

E • (S)

Figure: 3 Textured-yam Productioll Process alld Energy Use

Of aU the energy consumed in finished-yam production, 70% is

accounted for by false twist machines. Table 1 shows a
breakdown of this energy consumption.

Table I E.\{/l/Iple of False Twisting Machine a/ld Electricity COllsllmption

(kWh)
Processing Machine Single Heater Double Heater
(192 spindles) (216 spindles)
Equipment Capacity Utilized Capacity Utilized
Main motor 15.0 8.0 13.5 9.5
Exhaust motor gas 1.5 1.0 2.2 1.5
Yarn sucking motor 2.2 1.5
No.! heater 32.0 16.0 15.0 7.5
No.2 heater 11.0 6.0
Total 50.7 26.5 46.7 24.5

(Edited hy .ITCC: Energy Conservation Techniqlles ill Textile Indllst,y.

{>.68. 1981)
Textile Industry II

Therefore, improvements in the heat insulation of the heater

and the lowering of heater temperature may be considered as
energy saving measures.

Since the latter has implications in the characteristics of

the finished-yarn, whether or not it is adopted should be
examined on such occasions as in the development of a new
product. Since air-conditioning plants are designed based on
the conditions applicable at the time of installation, it is
desirable that they be re-examined against the present
conditions.

Weaving

Rationalization in fabric production is such that while various

improvements in machinery aimed at high speed operation and
labor saving have been carried out, the amount of energy use
per unit of the product has gradually increased. Regarding loom
design, high productivity shuttleless looms such as water jet.
rapier and gripper types have successfully been introduced,
with air jet models put in practice in the production area of
industrial fabric material.

The amount of energy consumed by each loom during its

weaving operation can be estimated from the motor capacity
and weaving speed. Conventional shuttle looms are based on
the weft-insertion method. incorporating a shuttle zooming to
and fro with a large inertia mass and mounted with extra weft.
and they also use energy consuming pims as an integral part of
the machine.

For this reason, the shuttle less looms contribution to

energy saving cannot be regarded as too high. On the other
hand. as a large amount of energy is consumed in sizing, as
 12 Textile Printing

W3Ip S Welt

E
E E
E.B

E.B E

E. ElectrICity
S: Steam

Figure: " WC((1"IIIg Proces.les lIlId ElIl'rg\ Use

Textile !ndllStry 13

one of the preparatory operations for weaving, the introduction

of foam and solvent sizing operations are being investigated.
Furthermore, long fiber fabrics using nonsizing filaments
have been developed, eliminating the sizing process altogether.
In a reported example, the introduction of a new heat
exchanger into a sizing machine with a very poor sealing
capability achieved more than 40% of energy saving.
The share of energy cost in the total cost of production IS
not necessarily high for the knitting process. However. of the
main production facilities for this process. knitting machines
have also been undergoing a shift towards high speed and large
capacity and fine gauge features; the current industry trend is
for high added-value goods and multi-line, smalI-volume
production based on advanced systems such as computer-
controlled pattern making mechanisms.

E: Elcctm:ity
E

F1KlIrl':5 KlIllling PruCI'.HI'S and Ellergl U.lt'

Therefore, a potential tendency for increased energy

consumption should be taken into account. As a n:."ult, it is
desirable to conduct a comprehensive re-examination of the
production schedule along with the implementation of actual
energy conservation measures in order to reduce or restrain the
~hare of energy cost in the total production cost.
14 Textile Printing

Dyeing and finishing is very important to advance energy

conservation in the dyeing and finishing field. which has a high
energy consumption share in terms of both the amounts of
money and energy used. The dyeing and finishing process
consists of many interwoven unit operations, and it is well
known that the process generally goes through repeated wet
and dry operations.
The heat balance of a unit operation can mainly be
considered as the difference between the total supplied heat on
the one hand and the sum of the heat required by the system
and various forms of heat losses on the other.
As the processing machines become faster they also
become larger. This means the energy consumption per unit
length of time will increase. but generally it will accompany a
reduction in energy consumption for the treatment of a unit
amount of fabric. Therefore. it follows that, as long as the
product turnout is maintained, continuous processing with a
large machine will be more effective in achieving energy
conservation.
The currently employed dyeing techniques are based on
unit operations which have been developed and established for
use with natural fiber. For this reason. the traditional standard
treatment steps are often applied to blended yarn fabrics as a
matter of principle. However. through omitting or merging
some of the unit operations according to the usage of the
product and considering the characteristics of the coexisting
synthetic fibers. it becomes possible to achieve energy
conservation.
It is easy to understand that a reduction in water use will
contribute to energy conservation in the dyeing process which
consists of various wet treatment and drying unit operations. It
is especially desirable to curb the water consumption because it
Textile Industry 15

is linked to the overall water supply cost including that of

drainage.
For the reduction of the processing bath ratio, it IS
necessary to investigate the following measures:
(a) Treatment with low bath ratio: In general, dyeing and
finishing methods are classified into the batch and
continuous processing methods, and it is recommended to
use the latter method where a low bath ratio is desired.
However, depending on the details of processing
requirements, there are often instances in which the batch
method has to be employed. In such cases, batch
processing machines which allow lower bath ratios such as
the jigger, wince, beam, pad roll and jet flow types should
be selected as far as the circumstances permit.
(b) Utilization of low bath ratio processing equipment: In
order to use a lower bath ratio with the existing machinery
intact, a method to insert a filling material inside the
processing equipment, as shown in Figure 6, has been
proposed. It has been reported that with this method, the
bath ratio of a wince could decrease from 25: I to 17: I, and
for a beam a reduction was possible from 15: I to 12.5: 1, or
even down to as low as less than 10:1 where the axis of the
beam was made off center with respect to the container
body, thus increasing the batch-up volume.More recently,
low bath ratio processing machines which are built in with
the above mechanisms have been developed and put-on the
market.
(c) Utilization of low add-on equipment: Several types of
processing equipment with a mechanism to uniformly
apply the fabric with a minimum amount of liquid
necessary in semi-continuous and continuous processing
systems are known to be typical examples of energy
 16 Textile Printing

conservation techniques. Those in Figure 7 are typical of

them.

Filing material

Filling material Liquor

injecting pump
Winch

Fabric

Figllre:n LOll" Bath Ratio Operation of E.\isting Pro('e~sil/g Eqllil)!1Ient

through Insertion of Filling Material

(d) Extension of foam processing technique: Figure 8 is a

typical example of foam processing liquid applying
equipment. The foam processing technique is used for the
preparatory, dyeing, textile printing and finishing
processes, with confirmed effects of promoting energy
conservation, but it is desirable to examine details of usage
and other practical conditions prior to application.
A time saving technique aimed at improving productivity,
continuous operation with an increase in the size of the
processing machine can also further energy conservation.
Likewise, for batch processing, the number of technical fields
Textile Industry 17

a) Example of knife coat

applyingequipment

Sealed bianke

b) Horizontal pad applying

equipment

c) Vacu·foam equipment
(Monforts make)

F)gure:8 Typical Foam Applying Eqlli(lmellt

18 Textile Printing

is increasing where the promotion of energy conservation is

desired through a reduction in processing time. This tendency
becomes more pronounced as the needs of the market become
sophisticated. Techniques to accelerate the processing effect
with rapid dyeing and plasma treatment are typical examples.

f-~-
-
,
I
Carrier roll I
I
,I

t
I
P, and P2 's squeezing pressure
can be freely adjusted
I

Liquid resin

Transfer Padding Mangle (Figure 7)

Rapid dyeing which can drastically reduce the dyeing time and
achieve remarkable time savings can also achieve great energy
conservation effects when applied to polyester. In order to
attain these effects, it is necessary to select dyes with assistants
and provide appropriate dyeing equipment. Combined with the
foam processing technique, the rapid dyeing technique may
also have a potential of leading up to the development of new
practical dyeing techniques.
Aiming at a reduction of processing time, the combined
use of a number of new techniques are being studied and it has
Textile Industry 19

been reported that processing with plasma. ultrasound.

magnetism and radioactive rays accelerates processing effects.
Various methods are being investigated to reduce proces~ing
time through accelerating processing effects using these
techniques in preprocessing, postprocessing. simultaneous
processing, etc.
o

Tnatcx MA ~ystem <FIgure 7)

In many cases. unit operations of the dyeing process are carried

out at high temperature. Therefore. to reduce the required
margin of temperature rise from heating is very important in
view of achieving funda-mental energy conservation along with
reductions in processing time. These measures need to be
addressed from the following two viewpoints:

(a) Raising temperature of inlet water

If the temperature of the inlet water to be used III the dyeing

proces~ becomes relatively higher. the amount of energy to be
consumed in raising it to the predetermined value will be
reduced.
For that purpose, cooperation within a company, or that
involving more than one company (using low temperature inlet
water at the dyeing factory for cooling purposes, and the high
20 Textile Printing

temperature discharge from the cooling system for dyeing

purposes) should be investigated, as well as the utilization of
natural resources (for example, geothermal and solar energy)

2 -[J-GJ--~

1. Mixing tank 2. Filter 3. Pump

4. Flowmeter 5. Spray

Spray Sy~tem (Figure 7)

(b) Development and introduction of low temperature

processing techniques.

It is important to continue with technological development

aimed specifically at lowering the processing temperature along
with raising the inlet water temperature. It would naturally
involve the integration.
Low temperature scouring, bleaching, dyeing and curing
techniques are some of the practical examples of this. An
important consideration along with the reduction of the
processing bath ratio is a re-examination of drying operations.
A drying operation is, in principle, inserted after every other
unit operation and is an important operation which not only
determines drying efficiency as such but also has a direct
Textile Indllstry 21

int1uence on the morphological stability and texture of the final

product.
For this reason, various types of drying equipment have
been selected and put to practical use, depending on the fiber
material and form involved. In view of implementing energy
saving measures, it is particularly important to investigate the
following three items:

(a) Reduction of drying operations in number

A detailed study of typical preparatory process configurations

reveals that drying operations are involved in relatively high
numbers. ranging from one to four units or 14Cff to 40Cff of all
unit operations in the entire process. Therefore, combinations
of unit operations should be sought after such that drying
operations between standard unit operations can be eliminated
as much as possible. It is especially necessary to cut down on
drying operations in preparatory processes which will not
directly affect the product's performance or appearance quality.

However, an operation which would have come after an

eliminated drying operation would have to treat wet fabrics.
thereby necessitating special measures that would enable wet
on wet treatment.

(b) Improvements in drying efficiency

It is desirable to investigate possible improvement~ in the

drying efficiency in terms of efficiencies of both the
dewatering and drying steps. While it is well known that the
most efficient methods of dewatering and drying are by means
of a mangle and a cylinder dryer, methods which have been
practiced for a long time, they are also known to have
limitations in terms of applicable fiber materials and forms.
22 Textile Printing

It is necessary to investigate new drying methods (high

frequency drying, microwave heating, far infrared radiation
heating, etc.) together with oth('r measures such as utilizing
vacuum liquid removal, addinf a drying-facilitating organic
solvent to the treatment liquid, and combining foam treatment
systems with non-foam ones.
Along with active energy saving measures, it is important
to carry out the collection and recycling of the energy used in
unit operations. The collection of heat energy should start with
thoroughly grasping the basic energy balance of each unit
operation.

In the dyeing process, although water has been used as

the only abundant and cheap resource so far, it is becoming
difficult to obtain high quality water in large quantities at a low
cost. The worsening of river pollution coinciding with an
increase in population density is inevitably creating a situation
where the cost of water will gradually increase. including the
investment for improvements in waste-water treatment
facilities.

In addition, although dry-system processing has been

contemplated for a long time due to the fact that most energy is
consumed in the heating and evaporating operations, it has to
date only been applied to a specific area on a limited scale.

However, it is a technique which deserves attention as a

promising process in the mid- to long-term future. This
technique has the following two variations:

(a) Organic solvent processing

While the solvents to be used for dyeing processing are

categorized into four main groups-halogenated hydrocarbons,
petroleum derivatives, aromatics and oxygen-containing
Textile Indllstry 23

solvents-halogenated hydrocarbons are generally recom-mended

as they do not cause a fire or explosion (provided that thorough
countermeasures to groundwater pollution are taken).
It IS well known that in terms of energy conservation,
these solvents have an advantage over water-based ones in all
of these aspects: specific heat, latent heat for evaporation, heat
needed for evaporation and evaporation speed. There are a
number of proposals for solvent scouring, solvent dyeing and
solvent finishing, including those already put to practical use as
a differentiating technique.

(b) Inorganic so/vent processing

Liquid ammonia is one of the agents being considered for

dyeing applications as a inorganic solvent. Of its typical
proccs~ing tech,iques, liquid ammonia mercerizing and liquid
ammonia dying are given particular attention.
While textile manufacturing techniques which promote the
conservation of natural resources include grease refinement
from raw wool, the collection and recycling of warp sizing
agents, and the re-llse of alkaline waste liquid arising from the
mercerizing process in a scouring bath, in terms of energy
conservation the use of continuous baths which utilize the
residual heat of the system are particularly important in view of
energy conservation.

If the continuous use of a processing bath is introduced

with the necessary conditions being met, thus aIlowing oply
those materials consumed in the dyeing process to be
replenished, in particular with the unit operations designed for
the batch method, it wiIl greatly contribute to the recycling of
heat energy in addition to achieving the conservation of natural
resources and the rationalization of countermeasures to water
waste.
24 Textile Printing

In the dyeing process with a high heat consumption, the

use of the continuous bath deserves particular attention as a
technique whose practical application is an urgent task to help
implement the remaining rationalization measures. With an
expansion in the practical use of knit mercerizing and ammonia
mercerizing, the characteristics of the hot mercerizing
technique is also attracting attention.

It has been pointed out that, s1l1ce poor uniformity

associated with the traditional mercerizing due to the
hydrophobic nature of cotton grey fabric is dissolved in hot
mercerizing which uses heated sodium hydroxide, the
rationalization of the preparatory process can be greatly
advanced.

At the time a new space-efficient factory is being built, it

is possible to incorporate a program to introduce such facilities
as to be complete with factory-wide energy conservation
measures.

The energy consumption share of the clothing

manufacturing division which consists of large numbers of
small-sized companies and their employees in the overall textile
industry is not necessarily low, but the ratio of energy cost to
the total cost is relatively low.
However, the energy cost forecast is inevitably a gradual
increase under circumstances where the production of high
value-added goods is required, along with the implementation
of labor saving measures, as a result of the challenging market
environment characterized by personalized and diversified
consumer needs. high demand for quality goods, short product
cye Ies. etc.

Therefore. it IS desirable that a comprehensl ve

rationalization program be investigated apart from reductions in
energy cnnsumption. It is widely acknowledged that. as a result
Textile Industry 25

of tireless rationalization efforts made by all companies

involved. the textile industry has increased its production value
by I 0 time~ since 1955, with a gradual decline in its share over
the same period, though maintaining a stable growth as a
mature industry.
Structural changes in textile industry can be seen that
large structural changes occurred in the industry as the
domestic companies carried out measures to overcome severe
competition from overseas, in addition to the already intense
competition among themselves.

The shares in shipment value of major subdivisions in the

textile industry have undergone drastic changes, such a~ a rapid
fall in the fiber production and weaving divisions and a fast
growth in the knitting and sewing divisions. reflecting the
conditions surrounding the international as well as domestic
textile markets.
Despite a strong tendency towards multi-line smal1-
volume production in response to requirements for high value-
added products from the fashion market. there i~ a marked
growth in both per capita monthly production volume and
product value.
Regarding future trends, while the latter is difficult to
estimate as it depends on the goods' prices. which are in turn to
be determined by a balance between demand and supply, the
fonner may be more easily foreseen as continuing with its
increasing trend as a result of advances in the sophistication of
production equipment, if profitability is ignored.

However. due to the high level of rationalization already

incorporated in such equipment, it will be reasonable to expect
that attempts to achieve further improvemenh in thl~ respect
will inevitably meet with considerable difficulty.
26 Textile Printing

It illustrates the course of events as oil replaced coal as

the dominant energy source supporting the backbone of society,
with the textile industry actively introducing the tluid energy
revolution amid high economic growth. This took place against
the background of a low level stabilization policy for oil prices
made possible by ample oil supplies, including the discovery of
large-scale oil fields. as well as oil's convenience in
transportation and utilization.
It can also be seen that a shift in emphasis from oil with
its sky-rocketing price to electricity occurred as a result of
energy saving measures introduced after 1973. More recently.
energy saving has been advanced, while a rationalized use of
diversified energy sources is being pursued with a global view
taking the oil market price etc. into consideration.
Although the achievement of significant energy saving
can be observed in the fiber production and dyeing divisions.
where energy consumption ratios are particularly high, it is also
apparent that their energy consumption has actually been on the
increase since 1985. Given this phenomenon along with the
steadily increasing energy use in the spinning and weaving
fields. it can reasonably be assumed that rationalization efforts
are reaching their limits in view of the current production
structure designed to cater for the needs for multi-line, small-
volume production from the fashion clothing market.
The gradual increase in energy consumption in spinning
and fabric production and the upward trends after 1985 in fiber
production and dyeing. Both translated into a decrease in terms
of the ratio of energy cost to the total, illustrating that
comprehensive energy saving efforts have been made by the
companies concerned.
Although it is generally difficult to assess the level of
production rationalization in the textile manufacturing industry
Textile Industry 27

in absolute terms, the dyeing and finishing subdivision is often

put under scrutiny as a typical specialized technical field with a
number of unknown factors. It consumes large quantities of
energy carrying out multi-line processing tasks within short
periods of time in order to directly reflect the market's needs.
Since productivity drastically changes with the texture or
structure of the original fabric and the details of processing,
polyester-cotton blend fabric, which is more likely to be
processed in a uniform manner, was used as the material for
this scenario.
In general, it is well known that the developmental
process of a textile market moves from a product-oriented
stage, where all goods produced are sold to a consumer-
oriented stage where the desired goods are only those which
will satisfy the consumer's demand, comprising his wants and
purchasing power. This is via a mass-consumption stage which
is supported by a mass-production system.
The characteristics of textile products demanded in the
markets in these different developmental stages may be
classified into price-sensitive mass-production type basic
clothing, which applies to the earlier stages, and multi-line,
small-volume production type fashion clothing which pertains
'to the last stage and needs to satisfy each individual consumer's
taste.
Assuming the amount of fabric necessary for people to
live a physically comfortable life in a given environment can
be derived from the weight of clothes which is enough to keep
a certain level of body temperature, given such factors as air
temperature, humidity and wind velocity prevalent in the
region, basic clothing can be regarded as a cumulative total of
such clothes.
28 Textile Printing

Although it is even more difficult to define the amount1of

fabric consumed in fashion clothing, a market which has
satisfied the demand for minimum basic clothes has a tendency
to shift its emphasis towards textile products with stronger
fashion overtones and grow rapidly.
Figure 9 shows the relationship between world population
and the total textile demand.
II)

I I
I I
I
70

J
, I

;.
r , y4

I
,! ,.
I /
/

I /' ,/
I ,/ ,
,'11 J/I ~'
Solid line represents,' I " ~ ./
actual result " .,,.,'
.
",
,
c
o
,, I
" ,
'

,
"
" ,",,.. ' "
fj
:::1
~:J) ,,
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i
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20
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10 , , '.,so
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,," UJI)..... '
,,:',' ,,06'" Case of per capita annual
fi,' .. consumption at 2 kg
0;' IVLi 4' 6 8 I ,
10 12
World population (billion)

Figllre: 9 Relation.l'hil? between World POP Illation {lnd World Textil

Consllmptio/l alld Production
Texlile Il/d/l.l'lry
29

Assuming a global environment in which world population will

grow from the present 5.4 billion to 10 billion in 2050, and
further to 11.6 billion in 2150 when it is expected to reach a
static state, the total textile consumption is forecast to double,
even lIsing the current figure of per capita annual average
textile consumption (8kg/person).

pattern marketing
design

Figlll'e: J() EWIIII"e of Schematic Rel'I'eJl'IItllfio/1 of

World Textile IlIdll,I'tl'''
30 Textile Printing

The textile industry is traditionally regarded as a typical

labor intensive industry developed on the basis of abundant
labor supply and has a tendency to expand to overseas markets
once the domestic demand is satisfied, as illustrated by
examples of the established textile industries of many
developed countries.
For this reason, even when the textile industry of a
specific country is to be examined, it is widely recognized that
a business strategy taking into consideration the global textile
industry setup is very important. Figure 10 shows an example
of the schematic representation of such a global setup of textile
industries.
Most textile consumption takes place in apparel products,
and the general tendency is that where further expansion is
intended, it will be carried out through the development of
industrial applications in which textile products are used as
production materials (ranging from fishing nets, tire cords and
canvas cloth to geotextile).
Therefore, in order to study the textile manufacturing
industry, it is generally sufficient to consider the production of
appc:rel goods. Specialized techniques necessary for apparel
goods production. There are a number of intertwined technical
factors involved in various sub-processes or specialized
technical fields which make up the overall production process
that fabricates and reshapes the raw fiber material into the final
textile product to be used by the consumer.
As has been frequently pointed out throughout its
development, the Japanese textile industry has a unique
organizational structure consisting of groups of independent
companies where all companies in a group belong to one of the
above-mentioned specialized technical fields and operate in a
horizontal specialization configuration.
Textile Illdustry 31

Namely, in terms of business size, the fiber production

and spinning subdivisions are in contrast with the rest of the
textile industry where relatively large numbers of small
busine~ses coexist.

In addition, these groups of small companies can only

stay in business by relying on the supply of abundant cheap
labor, exhibiting a legacy of the textile industry's past as a
labor intensive industry, even on its path towards
modernization. The energy consumption shares of various
specialized technical fields and it can be seen that energy
consumption is relatively high in the fields of dyeing and
finishing, fiber production, spinning, weaving and clothing
manufacturing.
As for water consumption, the share of the textile industry
in the entire manufacturing industries is 5.2% for fresh water
and 1.1 o/e for sea water. Considering the fact that most of this
water is used for easy-to-recycle temperature control and
cooling purposes, the industry's total water consumption cannot
necessarily be regarded as high.
However, as is widely accepted, the dyeing and finishing
division is placed in a special position in that its water
consumption is mainly for processing and washing purposes. In
short. there is no panacea for achieving energy conservation in
the textile manufactur-ing industry. With the actual
implementation of an energy conservation program, it is
important to grasp the current level of energy consumption and
its actual conditions in detail, set goals (energy consumption
and corresponding cost), and achieve the goals through a
company-wide effort as far as possible.
In the textile manufacturing industry, It IS important to
thoroughly understand that, depending on the trend of the
market. the company is targeting, consumer requirements for
32 Textile Printing

the textile products to be supplied differ, thereby urging the

implementation of energy conservation measures which are
relevant to the production of the goods that suit the market.
Therefore, it is necessary to expect that, when multi-line,
small-volume production type high value-added goods are
produced, energy consumption may increase rather than
decrease with production rationalization, in contrast with mass-
production type goods. When differentiated goods are
produced, the share of energy costs in the overall production
cost should be given importance rather than energy
consumption.

Textile Indutsry: The North American Industry

Classification System (NAICS)

The classification is comprised of industries that group

establishments with similar production processes, that is, it
applies the production-oriented economic concept. In the main,
the hierarchical structure of the classification also follows the
production concept. The North American Industry
Classification System (NAICS) categorise textile indutsry as
follows.

Textile Mills

Textile Mills comprise a group of industries that transform a

basic fiber (natural or synthetic) into a product that is further
manufactured into usable items such as apparel, sheets and
towels, and textile bags for individual or industrial consumption.
The main processes in this subsector include preparation and
spinning of fiber, knitting or weaving of fabric, and finally the
finishing of the textile.
Textile Jndustry 33

Textile Product Mills

The subsector Textile Product Mills includes the production of

textile products, except apparel. With a few exceptions,
processes used in these industries are generally "cut and sew,"
i.e., purchasing fabric and cutting and sewing to make a non-
apparel textile product such as sheets and towels. By creating a
~eparate subsector, the classification more accurately reflects
both the production aspect and the strong desire for a separate
identification for these activities by many data users. The
Apparel Manufacturing subsector consists of establishments
with two distinct manufacturing processes:
1) "cut and sew" as described above and
2) the manufacture of garments in establishments that first
knit fabric and then cut and sew the fabric into a garment.

Apparel Manufacturing

Knitting, when done alone, is classified in the Textile Mills

subsector. but when knitting is combined with the production
of complete garments, the production processes are similar to
those in Apparel Manufacturing. The three countries agreed to
establish separate subsectors for Textile Product· Mills and
Apparel Manufacturing. These groupings allow for the unique
identification at a high classification level for Apparel
Manufacturing, an extremely important international trade
group1l1g.

Leather and Allied Product Manufacturing

The subsector Leather and Allied Product Manufacturing

consists of transforming hides into leather by tanning or curing,
and fabricating the leather into products for final consllmntion
34 Textile Printillg

It also includes the manufacture of certain other, similar

products from other materials, including products other than
apparel made from "leather substitutes", such as lUbber, plastic,
or textiJes. Rubber footwear, textile luggage. and plastic purses
or wallets are examples of "leather substitute" products
included in this group: The products made from leather
substitutes are produced in similar ways as are the leather
produl:ts and they are made in the same establishments so it is
not practical to separate them. The inclusion of leather
production in this subsector is partly because leather tanning is
a relatively small industry that has few close neighbors as a
production process, partly because leather is an input to some
of the other products classified in this subsector, and partly for
historical reasons.

NAICS: Applications and Limitations

There are some analytical needs that cannot be met by this

industry classification. For example, there is a need in the U.S.
and Canada for data for separate statistics for men's and
women's apparel, even though overlap of production exists for
many specific clothing items. This cannot be accommodated
by NAICS because of differences in the way apparel
-production is organized in Canada, Mexico, and the U.S.
Specifically. in Mexico, producers of children's wear are not
specialized according to gender as they are in the U.S. and
Canada.
Canada and the U.S., on the other hand, can recognize
this distinction and in the national detail of the two countries,
these groupings are recognized. Moreover. Mexico requires
that uniforms be grouped together in a single industry; in the
U.S. and Canada, production of men's uniforms is usually
separate from production of women's uniforms. Additionally,
Textile Industry 35

size constraints prohibit separation of some activities in

Canada. For example. Canada cannot support a separate men's
work clothing industry. These differences in the way apparel
production is organized in the three countries also greatly limits
the number of NAICS industries that can be defined in this
subsector. As a result, NAICS industries have been defined at
a rather highly aggregated level (e.g., outerwear) because only
at these levels of aggregation will it be possible to publish
comparable data across all three countries. Therefore, the three
countries agreed that each country will publish more detailed
national industries that meet their respective national needs for
data on apparel. For the apparel industries only, each country
may develop a different national structure.
For users requiring detailed commodity information, each
country will publish information on products of these
industries. Efforts also are underway to harmonize the
commodity classifications to allow comparability of these
statistics. An issue related to the coding structure is the ability
to publish. and the economic significance of the items defined
in the classification. In the apparel industry, most activities that
were identified in one country exist in the others. However.
often an activi.ty is not economically significant to the same
degree in all countries. Further, data for some significant
activities cannot be published for a particular country because
of confidentiality rules. Finally, the way activities are combined
in establishments differs to some extent in the different
countries. A structure could have been developed that specified
such activities in NAICS, but the resulting statistical tables for
any given country would have numerous?insignificant or
suppressed entries. For example, Canada cannot support a
separate men's work clothing industry because of size. It was
preferable to adopt an operating rule for this industry subsector
that the NAICS industries must be economically significant and
publishable. It is anticipated that each country will
36 Textile Printing

publish'?additional categories that comprise sub-divisions of

NAICS industries to present data for activities that are
nationally significant.
In Textile Mills, the NAICS structure following the
production flow resulted in a major restlUcturing for Canada.
Every new national industry in Canada will have some change.
For the United States, the main industry change involves
moving finishing of fiber, yam, thread, and wool fabric into
separate classifications. The United States converters of non
knit (woven) fabric also were moved to manufacturing. In
Mexico, the changes were minor. The subsector Textile
Product Mills contains no major changes for any of the three
countries. In NAICS, all three countries moved curtains and
draperies made from purchased materials to this grouping. The
major change for Mexico and the U. S. for all NAICS
industries in Apparel Manufacturing was the classification of
cut and sew contracting into a separate NAICS industry group.
The fact that cut and sew apparel contractors make women's
dresses one week and women's blouses the next or make men's
shirts one week and men's pants the next results in difficulties
in classifying establishments. In addition, these contractors are
typically small. thus ca.using additional difficulties· in
classifying these establishments. Classifying all contractors
together eases the data collection process. Creating a separate
contracting industry for apparel results in a change in virtually
every U.S. and Mexican apparel manufacturing industry.
Canada already recognizes apparel contracting in its current
stlUcture.
 2
Textile Fibres

Textile fabrics are made of two or three types of fibres

according to their origins:
natural fibres: cotton, wooL silk, jute, linen
man-made fibres:
natural (cellulosic fibers created by reacting chemicals
with wood pulp): acetate, rayon.
synthetic (synthesised from organIc chemicals):
polyester, polyamide.
These different varieties of fibres have different structurc:.1
features which are outlined below.

Cotton

It is composed of cellulose units in quite pure form. Cellulose

lacks significant acidic or basic properties but consists of a
chain of linearly arranged biglucose units with ether bridge
linkages. The side groups of these units are primary and
secondary alcoholic hydroxy groups which make the fibre
hydrophilic. This property of cotton fibre is responsible for its
dyeing.
 Textile Priming

When cotton is swollen by concentrated alkali under

tension, so that the fibres cannot "hrink lengthwise, it produces
a silk-like lustre. This process is called mercerisation. The
affinity of mercerised cotton for dyes is greater than that of
untreated cotton.

Wool

It is the natural animal fibre. It is composed of protein

substances which, in turn, are composed of polypeptide
structures with amino and carboxylic acid end groupings and
side chains (R) having disulphide groupings which keep the
main polypeptide skeleton parallel to each other.
Wool is dyed with either or basic dyes through the
formation of salt linkages with amino or carboxylic acid end
groupings. Wool may also be dyed with reactive dyes that form
covalent bonds with available amino groups. In some cases,
mordanting is used to alter the dye ability of wool.

Silk

Like wool, it is also the natural animal fibre. It is also a protein

fibre which is made up of linearly arranged polypeptide
structures called fibroin having much simpler side chains. It is
wetted by water and dyed with either acid or basic dyes
through the formation of salt linkages.

Cellulose acetate

It is a man-made fibre which is made by acetylation of

alcoholic groups of cellulose fibre (cotton). The three hydroxyl
groups present in the single glucose unit of cellulose can be
replaced in succession depending upon the degree of
Textile Fibres

acetylation. The higher the degree of acetylation. the more

unlike cotton the cellulose acetate becomes.
Acetylated cellulose differs from cellulose fibres in that
they are more hydrophobic and lack large number of free
hydroxyl groups. Cellulose triacetate fibre is the most
hydrophobic and the most stable.
Dyeing of cellulose acetates is affected with dyes of low
water solubility which become. dissolved in the fibre or by
occlusion of dyes formed in situ. Acid, basic and reactive dyes
cannot be used because of the lack of sites for attachment. The
other less important semisynthetic fibres are nitro cellulose.
cuprammonium and viscose which are obtained from cotton by
nitration. by treatment with ammoniacal copper hydroxide and
by treatment with carbon disulphide and alkali respectively.

Polyamide (nylon, Du pont)

These are synthetic fibres possessing properties somewhat like

those of wool and silk. These synthetic fibres are made from
condensing diamine with a diacid or by self-condensation of a
lactam. For example. nylon 6 is made from caprolactam and
nylon 66 is made from haxamethylene diamine and adipic acid.
By changing the aliphatic residues. the carbon chains between
the two amide linkages can be varied resulting in variable
property of the amide fibres. Polyamide fibres are dyeable near
the boiling point of water with acid dyes that form salt linkages
with basic sites. Dyeing by this means is limited by the
availability of these sites.

Polyester fibres

These are synthetic fibres unlike any produced in nature. They

are synthesi~ed by condensing ethylglycol (aliphatic dialcochol)
40 Textile Printinf!.

with terephthalic acid (aryl-I, 4 dicar-boxylic acid) to form a

chain of easter linkages between phenylene and ethylene
linkages. Polyester fibres are hydrophobic. Some Polyester
fibres do not have functional groups while others are provided
with acidic groups or otherwise modified to make them
hydrophilic. Modified polyester fibres could be dyed by
solution of dyes in the fibre or by occlusion of dyes formed in
situ. Modified polyester fibres could be dyed in these ways or
with the dyes selected according to the nature of the sites
introduced by the modification.

Polyacrylonitrile

This is the synthetic fibre which is obtained by the

polymerisation of acrylonitrile. It contains linear carbon chain
with cyano groups attached to the alternate carbon atoms. In
polyacrylonitrile, the cyano groups are the dye sites. However,
the dyeing character of polyacrylonitrile can be improved by
making available better dye sites through its modification with
other copolymers.

Polyolefin fibres

These are obtained from the products of polymerisation of

unsaturated compounds of carbon and hydrogen. For l:;xample,
polymerisation is obtained by the polymerisation of propylene.
In propylene. In polypropylene, the methyl side groups are
attached to alternate carbon atoms of the main
skeleton.Polyo\efin fibres do not absorb water and are
chemically quite inert. They can be dyed with special disperse
dyes but are coloured best by introducing a colorant into the
polymer before the fibres are spun.
Textile Fibres 41

Hydrophobic and Hydrophilic Fibres

Most of the synthetic fibres do not attract water molecules and

are called hydrophobic fibres (means water repelling). On the
other hand. cotton, wool, silk and other natural fibres attract
water molecules strongly and are referred to as hydrophilic
fibres.

Biocides: Preservatives of Textile Fabrics

Biocides in textile industry are used to prevent deterioration of

fabrics by insects. fungi, algae and micro-organisms and to
impart hygienic finishes for specific applications. Sensitivity of
the fibres differs on a case by case basis. but textiles made
from natural fibres are generally more susceptible to
biodeterioration than synthetic man-made fibres.
Synthetic fibres are hardly ever subject to deterioration by
micro-organisms or insects, nevertheless two polymers are
more sensitive than others: Polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and
Polyurethanes (PUR) for which both hiocides are added.
Natural man-made fibres. such as rayon. are readily degraded
by mildew and bacteria whereas acetate is more resistant.
Animal fibres (keratin: wool. silk) are susceptible to
attack by both micro-organisms and insects. Cellulose fibres
(cotton, linen are susceptible to attack by micro-organisms, but
not by insects. Yet, cellulose fibres are more sensitive to rot
and mildew than animal fibres. The treatment with biocides can
take place before textile processing (e.g. during storage and
transport of the raw fibres) and at various stages of textile
processing.
Yarns may be treated or the fabrics as such. Different
techniques can be applied according to the fibre used. the end-
product. etc. Especially, fabrics exposed to outdoor conditions
42 Textile Printing

and carpets are treated with biocides. Raw wool must be

cleaned by wet processes before the fibre can be dry processed
to produce fibre, yarn or fabric.
Neither cotton, nor synthetic fibres requires this initial
wet cleaning, named scouring or wool scouring, before
processing (e.g. since raw sheep wool contains from 25 to 75lJc
suint, the production of one kilo of scoured wool fibres
produces one and one half kilos of waste impurities). Yarn
formation : textile fibres are converted into yam by grouping
and twisting operations used to bind them together.
Filament yam can be used directly (knitting) or be further
worked. Natural fibres need to gQ through different preparation
steps before being spun into yam. These steps are : opening/
blending, carding, combing, drawing and drafting. Biocides
against moths can be added during these steps. For manmade
fibres, just one step of texturizing is needed before spinning.
Methods for making spun yams from manmade fibres are
similar to those used for natural fibres. Fabric formation : the
two major methods used are weaving and knitting. Weaving is
the most common process and consist of interlacing yarns.
Knitting is also frequently used. The main difference between
knitting and weaving is the sizing/desizing and mercerizing
operations. So, no waste water emissions at knitting as in
weaving. Tufting is a process used to make most carpets.
One of the fundamental difference between tufting and
weaving is that the pile and the carpet back are not fOlmed at
the same time. Tufting technique presumes an already
constructed grounding layer or ground fabric also known as
"primary backing". Wet processing enhances the appearance,
durability and serviceability of fabrics by converting undyed
and unfinished goods ("greige" goods) into finished goods.
Textile Fihres 43

The fabric is definitely stabilised (strength. stlUcture. yarn

manufacture. preservative.) For simplification. this stage can be
divided in three main steps:
fabric preparation or pre-treatment (e.g. desizing, scouring,
bleaching);
dyeing andlor printing;
functional finishing.
Most fabric need to be prepared before dyeing, printing or
finishing. Preparation consists of a series of various treatments
and rinsing steps. Depending on the fabric and the fibre type.
one or more of the steps described below are not applicable.
Dc-sizing and scouring: these two operations are often
combined. The first is a process for removing sizing
compounds (e.g. starch, Polyvinyl Alcohol (PVA).
Carboxymethyl Cellulose (CMC» applied to yarns prior to
weaving. Scouring is a cleaning process for removing
natura' and acquired impurities (including biocides
eventually added with size components) from fibres and
fabric.
Singeillg: dry proces~ used on woven goods that must have
a smooth finish. It removes fibres protlUding from yarns or
fabrics.
Bleaching: process to whiten cotton. wool and some
synthetic fibres by treatment in solutions containing
hydrogen peroxide. chlorine dioxide. hypochloride. sodium
perbonlte. etc.
Merceri::.ing: process for increasing dyeability, luster,
sheen and appearance of cotton and cottonlpolyester goods
by impregnating the fabric with sodium hydroxide solution.
Merceri~ing typically follows singeing and may either
precede or follow bleaching.
44 Textile Prilllill8

Use of biocides ill dyeing operations

Dyeing operations are used at various stages of production and

can be performed using continuous or batch processes. Some
biocides may be added to dyeing baths in both processes.
Continllotls process: textiles are fed continuously into a
dye range. Continuous dyeing processes typically consist
of dye application, dye fixation with chemicals or heat and
washing. Dye fixation on the fibre occurs much more
rapidly in continuous dyeing than in batch dyeing.
Biocides against rot and mildew are applied in a
continuous process (immersion followed by squeezing the
solution from the fabric). It is estimated that 70-80% is
adsorbed by the fabric.
Batch process: also called discontinuous dyeing, it
involves applying a dyestuff in solution or suspension at a
specific liquor ratio ("ratio of mass of fabric to volume of
dyebath") which determines the depth of the colour
obtained.
The post dyeing stage consist of washing with water to remove
unfixed amounts of dyestuff from the textile substrate.
Common methods of batch, or exhaust. dyeing include beam,
beck. jet and jig processing. Moth repellent treatment can be
applied during dyeing by an exhaustion process.
One potential improved process for dyeing is pad-batch
dyeing. This method is one of the most reliable and
controllable available today and has been used quite
successfully in a wide variety of applications. Benefits include
the limitation of the need for salt or chemical specialities from
the dye bath. with associated cost savings and waste reduction.
III the pad-batch dyeing, prepared fabric is impregnated
with lilluor (water and process chemicals) containing premixed
Textile Fibres 45

fibre reactive dyestuff and alkali. Excess liquid is squeezed out

on a device known as a mangle. The fabric is then batched
onto rolls or into boxes and covered with plastic film to
prevent absorption of CO, from air or evaporation of water.
The fabric is then stored for two to twelve hours. The
goods can be washed with becks, beams. or other available
machines. Pad batch dyeing is more flexible than continuous
dyeing methods. The flexibility of pad batch equipment and the
use of water soluble dyes minimises cleaning operations.
Use of pad batch (cold) dyeing for cotton, rayon. and
blends conserves energy. water, dyes and chemicals, labour,
and floor space. While pad batch dyeing is a cost effective way
for facilities to apply reactive dyes to cotton and rayon, this
method may not achieve the desired final fabric propel1ies for
all cottons.
Pad batch dyeing is also not appropriate for dyeing
synthetic fabrics. Pad dyeing can be continuous or
discontinuous (batch). Printing differs from dyeing by the
pigments which do not require washing steps and generate little
waste. To meet requests for special "effects" the bleached and/
or dyed textile material (fibre, yarn or fabric) is submitted to
one or more functional finishes.
These processes may be chemical (e.g. stiffening,
softening, water and soil repellent, mildew-. rot-, mothproofing.
antistatic finishing, fire retardant finishing) or mechanical
treatment (smoothness. roughness, shining). The finishing
substances are used in aqueous solutions and fixed to the
material. Chemical finishes are usually followed by drying,
curing and cooling steps.
Foulard machines with several dipping baths. spraying or
painting techniques as well as exhaustion processes or lickroll
processes are commonly used. The main process is immersion
46 Textile Printing

dipping and usually the application of chemical additives takes

place by continuous "padding" (impregnating and pressing out
again).
For I1lgs and carpets. biocides are added with foam or
sprays after the application of the backing layer. The ideal
antimicrobial finish requires no additional process steps. It can
be introduced from the same medium as softening agents or
crease resisters.
Natural fibres (e.g cotton or wool) and their blends need
more water than pure synthetic fibres (Polyamides (PA).
Polyethylene sulfate (PES), Polyamides carhonate (PAC». The
amount of water depends also of the ennobled product (spun
yarns, fabrics or finished goods).
Biocide!>. are mainly added during the finishing process,
therefore the ennobling category is the most concerned sector.
Releases occur to air, waste water and soil. An estimation of
the distribution and the off-site transfers has been calculated
from ) 0 chemical substances (biocides). In the textile industry.
air emissions are a minor source of pollution compared with
many other industries.
Emissions to the air IS considered to be a negligible
pathway. due to the high attachment characteristics of the
biocides compounds. Operations that represent the greatest
concern are coating, finishing and dyeing. The waste water is
by far the largest waste stream. It is generated by:
washing and rinsing cycles (major sources);
bath dumps:
equipment clean-up.
Biocides !>.uch as pentachlorophenol (PCP) or organo-mercury
are not allowed anymore in Europe because of their persistent
and cumulative toxic effects. The alternatives compounds are
Textile Fihres 47

pyrethroids and mixture of pyrethroids and pyrimidine

derivates. Copper fungicides are also frequently used. These
biocides are extremely versatile and very effective against
fungi. bacteria and algae.
Methods used for waste water treatment can be classified
into primary or mechanical, biological or advanced physico-
chemical processes. Primary treatment consist of several steps.
i.e. screening. neutralisation, equalisation and gravity
sedimentation. According to the fibre and the processes used.
differences in the treatments may occur. The wet processing
(preparation, dyeing and finishing) accounts for the majority of
the waste water.
Biocides applied during sizing (e.g. moth repellents) can
be removed in waste water during the desizing step. In
addition. imported fabrics (such as raw wool or cotton) already
contains some biocides applied for preservation during storage
and transport. These biocides are removed by rinsing and
released with waste water almost completely.
Dyeing operations generate a large portion of the
industry's total waste water. Releases can take place at two
stages of the impregnation process, namely at the discharge of
the spent bath liquid and at the discharge of the water used for
the wash-out. Finishing processes generate waste water
containing natural and synthetic polymers and a range of
potentially toxic substances. ---- ___ _

Biocides are often incorporated with finishing products

such as water repellents. fire retardants. etc. in proportions of
0.5 to 2 Chi. The degree of fixation of biocides has been
estimated to amount 70 - 80%. Toxic chemicals used in dyeing
and finishing operations are emitted from dyeing machines andl
or dryers. After dyeing or finishing, products are dried on
continuous machines in closed or semi - open conditions.
48 Textile Printing

Other sources of air emissions are from organic solvent

vapour releases during and after drying, finishing and solvent
processing operations. Yet, the application of finishing products
and biocides in an aqueous solution is more and more preferred
to a solvent solution. Some biocides are applied by spraying
with foulard machines. Spraying is a dry technique in which
the moth resistant substance is applied on the pile of the carpet.
Biocidal treatment can take place by foam application during
dyeing or finishing. notably on carpets. Zero waste water
emissions can be obtained, yet, some products are not suitable
for making into foams and the removal of the foams can be
very difficult.
The use of "mini-bowls" is developing in the UK. for the
wash-oul steps, to reduce water consumption and limit the risks
of releases in the environment. Concerning the concentration in
the waste water and mass discharge according to the process
and the substances- concerned. Only releases to waste water are
taken into account in the calculation according to the low air
emissions and the lack of data. Imported fabrics may release
some biocidcs during the desizing/scouring step. These biocides
are almost completely removed in waste water. At each step of
application of a biocide, releases may occur. Those steps are:
desizing
scouring,
dyeing and
finishing.

Furninshing Textiles

Fibres. whether natural or synthetic, must be processed through

several steps to become fabrics. Cotton, linen, and ramie are
Textile Fibres 49

natural fibres grown from plants. Acetate. Iyocell, and rayon

are cellulose fibres manufactured from wood pulp. They may
be referred to as natural based on the raw material, although
they have many synthetic fibre performance characteristics
because of the processes that create them. Silk and wool are
natural protein fibres from silkworms and certain breeds of
goats, rabbits, and sheep. Synthetic fibres are made from
petrochemicals. Fibre trademark names are often used with
specialized performance wear, for example Lycra spandex
found in swimwear or biking shorts, but are often omitted from
other apparel labels.
Synthetic fibres are trademarked by manufacturers but
must he identified on consumer products according to generic
classes based on their chemical composition. The synthetic
fibre generic classes most often found in apparel and furnishing
textiles are acetate, acrylic, nylon, olefin. polyester, and
spandex (urethane).
Modacrylic. saran. and vinyon are less common in
consumer goods. The generic class names for natural fibres are
the same as their common names (cotton, linen, and so on).
Fibre content affects a fabric's absorbency, abrasion resistance,
chemical resistance, flammability, strength, sun resistance, and
elastic characteristics including drape, and wrinkle resistance
and recovery.
However, some characteristics can be modified by the
way fibres are spun into yarn, fabricated, or finished. Most
synthetic fibres are thermoplastic-they're easily deformed by
heat. For example. they will become wrinkled in the washer's
spin cycle when washed in hot water, and can be melted by a
hot iron. But synthetic fibre characteristics can be altered by
spinning them in unusual cross-sectional shapes.
Tri-Iobal fibres show less soil and wick moisture better
than fibres having round cross sections. Hollow-core fibres
50 Textile Printing

have empty channels in their centers to give more loft without

weight for fibrefill pillows or insulative outerwear garments.
Microfibers are spun in extremely fine filaments. An
example is ultra-thin polyester that feels soft but can be made
into fabrics that are lightweight yet strong. Nonwoven fabrics
are formed directly from fibres. They may be bound together
through entanglement (needling) processes, or sealed in
weblike structures with chemicals or heat. These nonwoven
processes may be used in blankets. fleece, interfacings, and
indoor-outdoor carpets.
Needlepunched fabrics can vary in thickness, stiffness,
and softness. but often are not very drapeable. Spun-bonded
materials of olefin fibres are used in some protective gear.
Fabrics are formed directly from polymers, which may be
extruded as films or foaml matrix structures. Examples include
waterproof rain fabrics, shower curtains, rubber gloves, and
some imitation leathers and suedes.
Films may get stiff in cold weather, but they repel dirt
and water, can be wiped clean, and may be disposable. Yams
are used in conventional woven or knitted fabrics. Natural
fibres grow to lengths that range from 1/4 inch to more than 12
inches. Staple is the term used to describe short fibres. Staple
fibres are twisted together, or spun, to form the continuous
lengths of yam needed for knitting or weaving.
Synthetic fibres are formed in continuous lengths and may
be filament or multifilament. They then may be cut into
appropriate staple lengths to use in fabric blends with natural
fibres. Filament fibres can be crimped, tangled. andlor
texturized to provide more bulk and elasticity. Yarns may have
several strands or plies of fibre twisted together.
Ply yarns are strong. When several plies are twisted
together, the result is a cord or rope. An endless variety of
Textile Filn·es 51

fancy yarns can be produced by varying the speed of the twist

or combining plies of different types in different ways. Often a
fancy yarn has three plies: a base yarn for strength, a fancy one
for interest, and a binder that is twisted around to hold the
fancy one in place.
Yarn structure influences fabric characteristics such as
absorbency, luster, strength, smoothness, stretch, wannth, and
wrinkle resistance. Staple yarns are softer and more absorbent
for towels, and warmer for sweaters. Filament yarns have
superior luster and strength for nylon hose and sheer curtains.
Filament yarn size is measured as denier.
Higher denier yarns are heavier and tougher, suitable for
upholstery and carpets, while lower denier yarns are smaller
and suitable for thin, sheer fabrics. Blended fabric uses more
than one fibre class or type to improve performance. For
example, a 65 percent cotton/35 percent polyester blend shirt
has cotton for absorbency and polyester for wrinkle resistance.
An intimate blend has two or more fibre classes in the same
yarn.
Table J Fibre Facts
Generic Ahrasion Sunlight Wrinkle Flammability Absorbency
fibre name resistance resistance resistance
Natural fibres
Cotton Good Good Poor Burns rapidly Excellent
Linen
(flax) and F1at=Good Good Poor Burns rapidly Excellent
Ramie Flex=Poor
Silk Good Poor Good Burns slowly Good
Wool Moderate Moderate Excellent Slow to ignite. Good:
!.Iow
Manufactured fibers
Acetate Poor Moderate Good dry. Burn~ rapidly Good
poor wet Poor:
drips nammg qUIck
melt drying
52 Textile Prillting

Lyocdl Poor Modcrate Moderate Burns rapidly Excellent

Mouanylic Mouerate Exccllent Good Flame resistant Poor
Nylon Excellent Slowly Excellent Variable; can Poor;
be flame quick
resistant drying;
wicks
moisture

Olefin Excellent Slowly Good Melts, burns Poor;

quick
drying;
wicks
moisture

Polyester Excellent Good Good Variable; Poor;

behind to excell can be quick
ent tlame dying
resistant wicks
Doesn't moisture
burn;
Saran Excellent Excellent, Good Doesn't hum; Poor:
but may melts and quick
darken chairs drying
Spanuex Moderate Goou; sun Excellent Burns easily Poor;
discolors quick
drying
Rayon Mouerate Moderate Poor to Burns very Excellent
moderate rapidly
ViJiyon Fair Moderate Moderate Doesn't Poor;
l1ame. quick
but drying
melts
easily

Woven fabrics also can be blended using different fibers or

fibre types in the warp than in the filling. With the exception
of spandex. at least 15 percent of a fiber usually is needed to
intluence the character of a fabric, For example, adding 15
percent nylon to wool will improve the wool's strength. but
adding five percent cashmere will do little to improve softness
and merely will add the prestige of the high-status fiber.
Textile Fibres 53

However. just three percent spandex in a blend will make

the fabric more elastic-so the tops of athletic socks wi II stay
up. Fabrication method affects fabric characteristics ~uch as
appearance. abrasion resistance, comfort (wannth and softness).
stretchability, and wrinkle resistance. Several methods are
common. Knitting lIses hooked needles to interloop yarns,
fonning stretchy fabrics.
Hand knitting uses a single set of needles. Home or
manufacturing machines used in knitting use multiple needles
to form either warp knit and/or filling knit fabrics. Loops in the
direction of the fabric selvage (length) are called wales, while
crosswise rows of loops are called courses.
Warp and double knit fabrics stretch less and do not
unravel or run as easily as filling or jersey knits. Raschel knit
is used to form lace-like fabrics. J:Iowever, if snagged, damage
is potentially greater in raschel knit fabrics than in true lace,
which is knotted. Weaving requires two or three yarn sets that
are interlaced at right angles in repeating patterns.
The basic weaves are plain, twill, and satin. These weave~
idenlify different interlacing patterns. Fancy weaves include
dobby. jacquard, leno, and pile (velvet). Plain and twill weaves
are superior in durability and often are used in work clothes
fabrics. A plain weave nylon upholstery fabric probably is most
durable. but its availability varies with fashion.
Satin weaves are very lustrous, but easily snagged and
abraded. Acetate satin may be sufficiently durable for a prom
dress WOIn once, but is a poor choice for lining a coat that will
be worn repeatedly. Thread count is the sum of warp and
filling yarns in a square inch of fabric and is a measure of
qualilY noted on woven muslin and percale sheets.
Sheets with thread counts of 160 to 180 are considered
high quality and durable. The 200 count percales are smoother,
54 Textile Priming

but their fine, thin yarns wear through sooner. Tufting is a

process that inserts face yarns into :t woven backing where they
are sealed in place with adhesive t. Quality is judged by the
closenes!-. and height of the tufts as well as the quality of the
backings and face yarns.
Tufting is used in rugs and carpets. Stitch-through or
malimo is a process in which a fiber web or yarns are laid
down and chain-stitched together. It is used more often for
curtain and drapery fabrics than for apparel. These open-
looking fabrics often have clear filament stitching that holds
and lets light filter through soft-textured, fancy effect yarns.
Quilting involves stitching fiber filling between two outer
fabrics. Such fabrics are very warm and are used in bedding
and outerwear. Laminating or bor.ding involves sealing two or
more layers together with foam or a bonding agent. Some
waterproof breathable fabrics are bonded with a one-way film
component that keeps out liquid water while allowing
perspiration to escape. Other fabrication methods include
knotting (used in laces). and braiding (used in shoe laces).
The last step in manufacturing textiles is applying
finishes. Finishes may change appearance and texture. For
example, flocking gives a fuzzy texture. Some finishes change
the functional characteristics of the fabric, such as moth
resistance, water repellency, or flame resistance. Finishes may
be given trade names by manufacturers, but many common
finishes, such as singeing on polyester blends to minimize
pilling. are routine and are not noted on consumer product
labels.
Fabrics with functional finishes usually are labelled to
advise you of their added benefits, because finishes are costly
for manufacturers to apply. New strains of cotton that produce
coloured cotton bolls on the plant currently are available. They
are promoted as "naturally coloured" and perhaps "organically
Textile Fibres 55

grown" if no pesticides were applied. These natural hues are

the latest in colour technology.
Colour can be applied at any step during manufacturing,
or after the fabric. garment. or textile product is made. Before
fabrics are dyed they are called grey goods. Carpets often are
tufted as grey goods, kept in inventory, then dyed to order.
Printed fabrics employ a variety of technologies originating
with the historical hand block print process.
Direct-roller printing, screen, and heat transfer prmtmg
are commonly used. Colorfastness depends on both the dye's
attraction to the fiber used in the fabric and the application
process used. A fabric dyed or printed with a fugitive dye, such
as indigo commonly used in jeans, will continue to bleed and
fade in colour with each laundering.
Usually washable fabrics are colourfast to laundering. dry
cleanable fabrics resistant to dry cleaning. and furnishing
fabrics resistant to sunlight and fume fading. Nevertheless.
except ions occur and consumers can have bad experiences
because there are no labelling requircmen'ts related to
colorfastness. It pays to complain to the retai ler and
manufacturer if you have a bad experience. They should have a
chance to satisfy you and "make it right."
Regardless of the manufacturing process used. it is almost
impossible to alter or set colour accurately in finished products
with commonly available home dyes. Use of home dyes for
craft purposes can be satisfying and enjoyabJe. But
considerable risk is involved in using home dyes. The result
cannot be predicted with certainty.
Despite widely circulating "common knowledge" to the
contrary. salt. vinegar, and alum do not "set" dyes and do not
prevent further bleeding or colour loss. Care that is
recommended for most apparel textiles is indicated on a
56 T('xtile Printing

Permanent Care Label that is attached to the garment in

accord'll1\=e with the Federal Trade Commission Rule.
Furnishing textiles often have care labels. however this is
voluntary. Lahels indicate whether items are washable or dry
cleanable and give warnings about celtaill chemicals such as
bleach. Care recommendations are based not only on fiber
content. yarn. fabrication, and finishes in the textile, but also
on construction features of the finished garment or textile
product.
Often the combination of components with differing
shrinkage characteristics results in products that cannot be
washed. Occasionally products appear on the market that truly
must be considered disposable because care methods
appropriate for one component will damage another.
 3
Textile Dyeing

A dye (dyestuff) is usually a coloured organic compound or

mixture that may be used for imparting colour to a substrate
such as cloth, paper, plastic or leather in a reasonably
permanent fashion. Previously dyes were obtained from animal
and vegetable sources. Today most of the available dyes are
synthetic dyes prepared from aromatic compounds which are
obtained from coal tar or petroleum.
It is important to remember all the dyes may not
necessarily be coloured substances. Therefore, optical.
brighteners or whiteners which may be called white dyes may
be included in the term dye. It is also important to remember
all all coloured substances are not dyes. However, the
requisites of a true dye are as follows: (a) It must have a
suitable colour. (b) It must have an attractive colour. (c) It must
be able to attach itself to material from solution or to be
capable for fixed on it. For example azobenzene is coloured but
Further, a dye may not be able to dye all types of substrates.
For example. picric acid to dye silk or wool a permanent
yellow but not cotton. Thus, a dye either forms a chemical
union with the substrate being dyed or it may get associated it
in an intimate physical union. It must be soluble in water or
58 Textile Priming

must form a stable and good dispersion in water. Alternatively,

it must be soluble in the medium other than water. However, it
is to be remembered that the pick up of the dye from the
medium should be good.The substrate to be dyed must have a
natural affinity for an appropriate dye and must be able to
absorb it from solution or aqueous dispersion, if necessary in
the presence of auxiliary substances under suitable conditions
of concentration, temperature and pH. When a dye is fixed to a
substrate, it must be fast to washing dry cleaning. perspiration,
light. heat and other agencies. It must be resistant to the action
of water, acids or alkalis. particularly the latter due tot he
alkaline nature of washing soda and washing soap.
There is probably no dye which can be guaranteed not to
alter shade under all conditions. The shade and fastness of a
given dye may vary depending on the substrate due to different
interactions of the molecular orbitals of the dye with the
substrate, and the ease with which the dye may dissipate its
absorbed energy to its environment without itself decomposing.

The Proccess of Dyeing

It is a process which is used to transfer the colour to the

substances being dyed. The dyeing process even now is being
extensively studied with the help of modern instruments.
However, the dyeing of fibres involves one or more of the
following four types of forces:
(a) Ionic illteractions. These arise from ionic sites of opposite
charge in the fibre and the dye molecules. For example, the
dyeing of wool with acid dyes of the levelling type with
fairly simple structures is mainly due to the formation of
salt-type chemical links between dye anions and cationic
groups in that fibre. As the salt-type chemical links
between dye anions and cationic fibres are easily broken,
Texti (1' f)reillg 59

the resulting dyeings h,IV~ sOlne-what poor fastness to wet

treatments. Basic dyes arc atldched to wool, silk or acrylic
fibres containing anionic sites by salt-type linkages.
Fastness to washing on wool and silk is in most cases
rather poor but usually reaches a high standard grade on
polyacrylonitrile fibres. This has been attributed partly to
difference in the strength of salt bonds and partly to the
hydrophobic nature of the synthetic fibre.
It
(b) Hydrogen bOl/ds. These interactions are weak and are
formed by ~haring a lone pair of electrons on nitrogen,
oxygen or fluorine in a molecule with covalently bonded
hydrogen atom. The hydrog\!n bonds are involved in
dyeing or wool, silk and man-made fibres. Several
hydrogen bonds forming between the dye molecule and the
fibre structure at a time may be sufficiently strong to hold
and dye molecule to the fibre structure. However, the
dyeing of cellulose is not explained through hydrogen
bonding because water has more affinity for cellulose than
dye molecules.
(c) vall der Wall!'s illferaetiolls. These interactions are weak
and mainly arise due to interactions between molecules
close to one another. In dyeing, these interactions arise due
to the interaction between orbitals of dye and fibre
molecule in linear fashion, van der Waal's intt'ractions
become stronger between similar groups, e.g., aryl in
polyester dyes. It appears that van der Waal's forces are
effective only when the dye and fibre are brought into
proximity by some means as a salt-type link.
(d) Com/em bOl/ds. These bonds are formed between dye and
fibre molecules due to the reactions between a reactive dye
and a group such as-OH. Such reactive dyes were first
introduc~d by ICI in 1956 under the name procioll dyes.
They were soon followed by Cibacron dyes by elBA.
60 Textile Priming

When a reactive dye having dichloroazine reactive system

undergoes reaction with the cellulose structure having alcoholic
hydroxy groups, one of the chlorine atoms undergoes reaction
with the hydroxy group of the fibre yielding a dye-fibre
attachment. When the dyeing is carried out in aqueous medium.
one chlorine atom gets replaced by the oxygen of the hydroxy
groups originally present in the cellulose while the other
chlorine atom gets replaced by hydroxy group by the reaction
with water.

the basis of various types of interactions between fibre

()11
and dye, it becomes possible to known that which fibre should
be dyed with particular dye or not. The various conclusions are
summarised as follows:

(a) Cotton may be dyed or printed by direct dyes. vat dyes.

soluoilised vat dyes. sulphur dyes, ingrain dyes, azoics,
reactive dyes and pigment emulsions.

(b) Silk may be dyed with direct dyes, acid dyes. acid-mordant
dyes. basic dyes and reactive dyes.

(c) Silk Illay be dyed with direct dyes. acid dyes. disperse
dyes and hasic reactive dyes.

(d) 'Polyamide fibres may be dyed with acid dyes, disperse

dyes and disperse reactive dyes.

(e) Polyesters fihres may be only dyed with disperse dyes.

(fl lVlodificd polypropylene fibres may be dyed with only

speciallY selected disperse dyes.

(g) Polyan·ylonitrile fibres may be dyed most suitably by

cationic dyes. However, disperse dyes can be employed
but with certain limitations.

The ploymer chelPist i~ pf"\\,,' St!CCf·'.~:!'·!! lJ1 incrt':I,ing the

versatility of the new ribrLS by inCOrplW4.lting dye sites of a
\'llrying nature as required to :ll.hiev(' dyeability with a
Tc rtrle IJrc;lIg 61

predermined class of dyes. It has now become possible to have

ployesters. acrylics and polyamide fibres which may be dyed
with positive (basic, cationic) negative (acid,anionic) or neutral
(di~perse) dyes. These developments have made possible for
fabric designer to produce materials (textiles, carpets) fabricated
in patterns which call be dyed three different colours from one
dye bath having three types of dyes. This concept is known as
cro~s dyeing. This has now hecome popular as a low cost method
of coloration.

Basic Operatiolls

The basic operation of the dyeing process involves the

following steps:
(a) Preparation of the fibre.
(b) Preparation of the dye bath,
(c) Application of the dye. and
(d) Finishing.
We Shall discuss these steps one by one

Preparation (?l tile fibre

In order for the dyeing to be successful. it is essential that the

preceding get as~ociated with foreign substance, like oils,
waxes, lubricants used while spinning. These also get
associated with sizing material and dirt processing Hence the
fibres are soured with soap and ~ther detergents before these
are dyed. This step helps the dye liquor to penetrate through
the fibrous material and thus produces level dyeing. This
treatment has been found to depend upon various factors like
the nature of the fibre. the depth of the shade and the
proces~ing material to which the dyed material is submitted.
62 Textile Prilltillg

Preparation (~l the dye hath

The dye bath is prepared by adding necessary chemicals to the

solution of water soluble acidic, basic and direct dyes. If there
are insoluole vat dyes in the dyeing bath, they are reduced with
alkaline hydrosulphite to render them water soluble leuco
compounds. After dyeing, the fibre are subjected to air
oxidation when the original colollr on the fibres is generated.
Beside. dye some other substances like wetting agents, salts.
carriers, retarders ami other dyeing assi~,tant:-. are also added to
the dye bath. The function of the carriers is to improve the
dyeing rate of hydrophobic fibres (e.g. polyester) because they
act as swelling agents. The function of retarders which are
colourless compounds, is to slow the dyeing process to the
desired level by competing with the dye reactive sites on the
fibre. For example. acetic acid is used as retarder when dyeing
of wool is done with acid dyes.

Applicatio1/ (~f the dye

In order to dye the fibre it is immersed in the dye bath for a

specified time at optimum temperature. For getting level dyeing
stirring arrangement is used. Level dyeing indicates the
uniformity of the dye on the fabric. This depends on the nature
of the dye, the absorptive power of the fibre and the conditions
of the dyeing. Dyeing can be achieved either by a hand
operation or on a machine. In hand operation the fibrous
material is moved in an open vat containing the dye colour. In
continuolts dyeing process, two types of dyeing machinery are
used. In one type, dyeing bath is kept stationary while the yarn
on cloth is moved in it. This agitates the liquor "'ept in the
dyeing bath. The excess dye is squeezed out by passing the
yarn or cloth through a pair of rollers. This also assures
penetrations of the dye. In semnd type. the fibrous material is
Textile Dyeillg 63

properly supported while the dye liquor is passed through it

under pressure in one direction. At intervals. the direction of
flow of the dye liquor is reversed. As the dyeing process is
continued. there occurs the gradual decrease of the
concentration of the dye but there occurs the gradual increase
of the concentration of the dye on the fibre. At last a stage IS
reached when the dyeing contains practically no dye and it is
then said to be exhausted.

Finisliing

Variow> finishing processes are applied to dyed fibres or cloth.

These processes are essential to produce lustre resistance to
shrinkage and creasing and other desirable yualities of feel and
appearance. Dyeing processes are generally carried out using
water as the medium. Hence purity of water is very important.
It is necessary to soften water if not pure.

Methods of Dyeillg

Direcf dyeillg

The method of dyeing depends on the absorptive power of the

fibre. the nature of the dye and the condition of dyeing.
However, it is necessary that the dye applied is fast to light.
washing. bleaching and other treatment and possesses an
intemity comparable to the standard sample. As wool and silk
are amphoteric proteins, they can be dyed directly either by
acidic or basic dyes. However. mordant dyeing is used to faster
and brighter shades. The dye bath is prepared by dissolving the
dye in cold water and to this small quantities of sodium
sulphuric acid or acetic add are added. The material to be dyed
is now introduced into the dyeing bath. Then, the temperature
of the bath is gradually raised to about 60° C. At this juncture.
64 Te:ili[e PrilltillN

exhausting agent like common salt or Glauber's salt is added

and the temperature is raised to boiling. The material is rinsed
cold and dried after dyeing is complete. The washing fastness
is improved by after treatment of the dyed fibre in a separate
bath. The various treatment are as follows:

(a) Development with diazonium salts.

(h) Diazotisation and development,

(c) Treatment with chromium fluoride or sulphate and

suI phate.
(eI) Treatment with formaldehyde, and

(e) Treatment with copper salts.

Treat ments (i) and (ii) are quite useful III modifying the shade
of the dyed fibre.

The cotton, linen and rayons do not show affinity for

many dyes which are lIsed for dyeing wool and silk. However.
they can be dyed with substantive dyes direct dyeing method.
The dye is dissolved in hot water. To this dye bath, 5-2OCk
sodium sulphate and O.5-2 c/r sodium carbonate are added. Now
the fibres are introduced in the dyeing hath which is fir'll
llIaintall1ed at 50-600 C and then raised in half an hour to 85-
95" C. The dyeing is completed in about I hour. As the
synthetic fibres are hydrophobic, they are resistant to the
lI'>ually colton dyes. However, they can be dyed from an
aqueolls disperison of a water-insoluble anthraquinone or azo
dye in the presence of a dispersing agent such a~ soap. In this
process of dyeing, the dye the fibres in the form of a solid
solution.

Vat dyeing

The ability of a colouring substance to function as a vat dye

has been found to depend upon:
Tl'xtill' DYl'illg 65

(i) the property of thl~ insoluhle dye to form a '\olubk alkli

salt hy reducing with alkaline reducing agent such as
"odium hydrosulr:lltc and
(ii) the affinity of the kuw salt for textile rihle~ e~pecially the
cellulose fihre)' If fibre is immersed in the alkalirw
solution of reduced dye and exposed (() atmospheric
oxygen or oxidi';I11~ agent the insoluhlc dye is regenerated
by oxidation which remains fixed to the fibre.

The dye hath for vat dyeing. is prepared by adding the dye and
a dispersing agent to water containing caustic soda and
hychw. ulphite. Vat dyeing is carried out partly by a continuou~
proce~s in which the cotton cloth is impregnated with vat
liquor. Then, it is steamed so that there occurs proper fixation
of the leuco compound to the fabric. Further, it is allowed to
pass through a bath which contains oxidising agent such as
chromate and acetic acid or perchlorate. This generates the
colour. Finally, it is soaped, rinsed and dried. When sulphur
dyes are applied by vatting, sodium sulphide is u~ed as a
reduced to hydroxyls. The sodium salts of these hydroxyl
groups are substantive to cotton. The two of the four carbonyl
groups of Indanthrene Blue RNS are reduced to hydroxyl
groups. Vat dyes are quite expensive and Illust be applied with
care. They offer e\celknt fastness when properly selected.
They are the dyes mo~t often used on cotton fabrics.

Mordant dyeillR

Whenever mordant dyes are applied, a pretreatment of the fibre

with a mordant material designed to bind the dye is essential.
The mordant becomes attached to the fibre and then combines
with the dye to form an insoluble complex called a lake. An
example of mordant is aluminium hydroxide which is
precipitated in cotton fibre. This mordant binds such dyes as
Alizarin by formation of an aluminium lake. When the mordant
66 Textile Prilltillg

dyes arc applied to wool, there occurs the combination of a

metal with the wool fibre and the laking of the dye with
combined metal gives the fibre vcry good fastness to washing.
The metal used for wool is commonly chrom;um which can be
applied before, during or after dyeing. The colour can be
changed using various metals.
The dyeing bath for mordant dyeing is made by adding 2-
5% acetic acid and IOCff sodium sulphate solution to the dye
solution. The temperature of the hath is initially maintained at
50-6()Ci(. When the fibre is introduced in the dyeing bath, the
temperature of the bath is gradually raised to boil till level
dyeing is obtained. The temperature is allowed to drop and
sodium dichromate, equal to half the weight of the dye is
added. Finally the material is rinsed. Mordant dyes have
declined in importance mainly because equal or supelior results
can be obtained with other classes of dyes at less expense in
time and labour.

Disperse dyeing

This method is now used for dyeing polyester fibres although it

was originally developed for cellulose acetate and polyamide
fibres. In disperse dyeing, the dye is pasted to the fibre with
water at about 40°C. Now a suitable dispersion and the dyeing
is carried out at 800C. Alternatively. disperse dyes may be
applied by a dry heat (Thermosol) process to polyester fibres.
In this case the dye achieves molecular form by sublimation
(vaporisation) from the solid dye to the fibre surface.
Extremely small particle size is also imp')11ant for this process.

Formation (~l d.ve on the fibre

Azoic dyes are produced inside textile fibres by azo coupling.

In the usual procedure. the fibre i!-. first impregnated with an
Tl'xfl/e I J., cillg 67

alkaline solution of the coupling component and then treated

with a solution of the diazonium compound. Finally. the dyed
goods are soaped and rinsed. Special techniques have been
devised for forming azoic dyes on synthetic fibres. It is
sometimes possible to apply both the diazo component and the
coupling component simultaneously from aqueous dispersion
and then to treat the goods. with nitrous acid to produce the
colour.

Dyeing (~r the wool with acid dyes

The dyeing bath is prepared by dissolving the dye in cold

water. To thIS small quantities of sodium sulphate and
sulphuric or acetic acid are added. Now the fibre to be dyed is
introduced into the dye bath. Then the temperature of the dye
b~lth is gradually raised. The dyeing is completed at the boiling
temperature in one and half hours. The fibre is then rinsed and
finally dried. This process of dyeing is simple and cheap. It
,. \'es the brightness of the shades.

Dyei1/g with the reactive dyes

Two methods are lIsed for dyeing fibres with the reactive dyes.
These methods are as follows:
(i) Impregnation by padding and
(i i) Dyeing in dye hath.

In the first process (i). the dye is dissolved in one vessel.

Wetting agent, sodium. sulphate and sodium bicorbonate are
dissolved in another vessel. The two solutions are mixed before
lise. The cotton fabric is first padded through it and then dyed
above 1000 C. The function of bicarbonate is to yield alkal i
which fixes the reactive dye on the fabric. The function of
sodium sulphate is to prevent the movement of the dye during
61\ Textile {)rillfillg

because if unlevel results are obtained, they are difficult to

correct. The treatment is concluded with a light scour so as to
remoV(' unfixed colour. In the second process (ii) the dyeing
with certain reactive dyes may be carried out in cold, lI~ing 2-
YIr llf the dye along with relatively high com:entration of
common salt.

Fastness Properties of Dyes

These are the properties of the dyes which indicate the

tolerallce of the dyes on the fibres towards the action of varioll~
foreign <11-!encies like light. washing heat (suhlimation), rubbing,
perspiration, milling (rotating ill wash wheel) etc. These
fastnes, properties have been carefully standardised by v:lriol\~
agencic~. For a given dye to be a commercial dye. It ~hollid
have at least the minimum rating 1ll1mher in each fa'!lh~~~
concerned with the type of the dye. However. certain
c:'\l'cptions are known. For example most of the
triphenylmethane ('rPM) basic dyes have low light fa~tness but
they owe commercial value due to the brilliancy of shades
obtained on the fibres.

The variolts fastnes~ properties are as follows:

(a) C%llr /asllll!ss. This measures the resistance of the
textiles when they are exposed to various agencies. The
ltsually practice is to apply the dye one the fabric in
specified strength and subjected to the variolts agencies.
For thi~ a scale of 1--5 is employed. In this scale, 1 means
poor fastness while 5 means excellent.

(b) Light .flIS/IIC.\S. This measures the resistance of dyed fabric

to I ight under standard conditions. For this a scale of 1-
8 is employed. In this scale, I denotes poor light fastness
while 8 denotes best fastness to light.
 69

(c) Sliblimation fastlless. A dyed piece is kept in contact with

undyed piece and subjected to heat. Alternation in colour
and degree are noted. This fastnes~ i~ graded from 1-5; I
denotes lowest rate in sublimation while 5 denotes highe~t
rate in sublimation. Sublimation fastness is useful for
synthetic fibres
(d) BllmT gas .Ii/Illes fasTness. A dyed piece IS exposed to
oxides of nitrogen. Alteration in colour IS asse~sed. This
test is largely used for synthetic fibres.
Many other fastness properties, e.g. bleaching, milling. hand
washing. rubblllg perspiration,etc., are also determined.

Development of Natural and Synthetic Dyes

Natural dyes have been used since ancient lime~ for colouring
and printing fabrics. Until the middle of last century most of
the dyes were derived from plants or animal sources by long
and elaborate processes. Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs contain
a thorough description of the extraction of natural dyes and
their application in dyeing. Further developments extending
over many thousands of years led to rather complicated dyeing
processes and high-quality dyeings. Among these the following
deserve special mention.

(i) Indigo. It is the oldest known dye. It was obtained both

from dyer's woad (indigenous in Europe) and from
Indigoferatinctoria (a native plant of Asia).

(i i) Tn'ian Pllrple or Royal PlII1Jle. It was extracted from a

gland of the purple snail by a process developed by the
Phoenicians. It was very costly. Chemically. it is
6,6.dibromoindigo.
(iii) Ali:arill. It is the oldest colouring material. It was obtained
from the roots of the madder plant which was cultivated
70 Textile Priming

extensively in Europe, the near Ea~t and India. It is a

mordant dye and gives different shades with many metallic
salts (mordants), e.g. it gives very fast red colour on an
aluminium oxide mordant and a [lurple to black shade on
an iron oxide mordant. Madder, cultivated in Turkey,
yielded an exceptionally bright red material which
accounts for the name Turkey red.
(iv) Cochineal. It was obtained from the female insects of the
species Coccus cacti. It dyed a crimson shade on an
aluminium mordant. This dye came to the European dyers
from Mexico. Chemically, cochineal is carminic acid.
(v) Logll·ood. It is the only natural dye which is still isolated
on a large scale from the wood of the tree Haematixylon
campechianum. It is cultivated and also grows wild in the
central America. The fermentation of the wood of this tree
contains a glucoside of haematoxylin which or oxidation
yields u colouring matter called haematin.
(vi) Hliematin: Haematin is an active dye which when
mordanted with chromium compounds gives blue and
black shades. It is still used for dyeing silk, viscose and
acetate fibres nylon, etc. It also gives cheap black shade if
good fastness properties.
Although the isolation of natural dyes has been abandoned,
they still retain the interest of chemists and a great deal of
work is being still performed for the determination of their
structures.
Picric acid, which was obtained by Woulfe in 1771 by
treating indigo with nitric acid, was subsequently occasionally
used for dyeing silk hut did not attain any significance, For this
reason, really incorrectly. William H.Perkin, not Woulfe, was
given credit for having produced the first synthetil. organic dye.
As a young eighteen year old student of Hofmann, Wiiliam
Tntlil' /)yci/lg 71

H.Perkin in 1856 decided to make quinine from aniline. Instead

of quinine. 11l' obtained a black mass in his reaction. On
work ing lip. he found that he had made a purple dye. He
started manufacturing the dye himself with great success. He
called this dye Manuveine. It is a violet cationic dye. The
brill iant work of Perkin immediately attracted much attention
and stimulated other chemists to carry out similar experiments.
In this way. in 1859. E.Verguin in Lyon discovered fuchsine.
On the other hand. P. Griess discovered diazo compounds
which laid the foundation for the development of the azo dyes.
The fln,t azo dye called Bismarck Brown was developed by
Marlim. in I g()3. After the excellent work by Kekule on the
quadri \ alenee of carbon and on the constitution of benzene. the
\\ ork was started for the artificial production of natural dyes. •
The first SllL'CeSS achieved in this direction was the elucidation
of the constitution as well as the synthesis of alizarin by
Graehe and Liehermann. The c1ucidation of the constitution
and the synthesis of indigo were completed by the research
work extendlllg over several decades.
In the beginning of 20th century G. Engi and
P. Friendlander developed indigoid dyes. These workers
synthesised Ciba Blue 4 Band thioindigo respectively. In 1901.
R. Bohn synthesised indanthrone which is the first
anthraquinonoid vat dye. In the 220th century. the dye~!'mch as
Neolan dyes. phthalocyanine and 1.2-metal complex C:yes. In
1920, R. Clavel and H. Dreyfuss introduced disperse dyes
which solved the problem of dyeing hydrophobic fibres. After
the Second World War. certain pigments were synthesised
which achieved importance for colouring plastics e.g.
C]uinacridone. Later chromo-phthalic dyes reactive dyes for
wool and especially reactive dyes for cellulose fibres were also
synlhesi 'ied.

Most of the dyes made in the nint'leenth century were

derived from the aromatic intermediate chemicals isolakd form
72 Textile Prilltillg

the coal tar distillation and the synthetic dyes are. therefore.
known as coal-tar dyes. Several hundred varieties of dyes are
produced on a large scale in our country today. Some of these
dyes arc being exported to other countries. The export market
possibilities in the recent years has also increased the horizon
of many ambitious dyestuff firm to enter in the world wide
competition in the dyestuffs and intermediates.

Pollution Problem of Dyes

One of the main threatening problems in the industrial world

facing today and applicable to dyestuff is the pollution
prohlem. The dyestuff industrial wastes in the form of
atmospheric gases and waste waters have been found to he
polluting the neighbouring area. The handling and production
or carcinogenic intermediates regularly involved in the
production such as benzidine and its derivatives a---. and
b-naphthy lamines, diphenylamine. etc .. has created setback in
the production of dyes. Further benzidine and its derivativl.'s arc
being hanned all over the world and being replaced by the new
comparatively much safer diamines because of their
carcinngenic nature. For example. the h-naphthylamille is no
more in practice for making its derivatives hut is replaced hy a
much safer sulphonic acid. Tobias acid. (n dye. industry the
process where lead salts. mercury salts, etc., were essential are
abandoned or n:placcd by new safer methods.

The ahove developments are notable from ecology point

of view. It is hoped that the future development of
intermediates and dyes to be exploited commercially will he
thoruughly investigated first from the point of view of ecology
,lIld sLlfet)' or human b~ings and aninlal a~ well ,,~ Ilialll
KII1~dnl1l. For the pollution control. newL'r iL'L;llliqlles havl' bel'il
intrlllhlCl'd unci arc further being developed by ah<;orbing thl'
i ndu<;t nal ga!-.cs and gi ving appropriate treatments to waste
 T( \ Ir/e I )Y('illg

\'.atl'r~
to minimise pollution. An expensive study has been
made on careful handling of solvents. cyanides. etc. These
de\'e1opment~ are notable from ecology point of view.

Chemical Nomenclature of Dyes

A large number of a variety of intermediates involved in

dycsi1I1Ts production cannot always be named by their chemical
n;tnle~ because chemical nomenclatures may lead to confusion.
For exampk. H-acid may be named chemically as l-amino-8-
hydroxy-naphthalene-3. 6-disulphonic acid or l-hydroxy-8-
amino·naphthalenc-3. 5 disulphonic acid, the chemical names
are different but the compounds are identical. The usual
practice is to name. dyes intermediate .. hy commercial names
~uch as H-acid. Y -acid. naphthol AS. Fast hlue B hase. Fast
scarlet G base .etc. These commerc ial names as compared to the
nomenclature are short. symbolic simple even for a layman in
trade.

Hundreds of dyes arc being synthesised in the laboratory.

Of thesl' about 3600 are used commercially. Various systems of
nomenclature are knowlI. In the earlier times. the commercial
names of dyes :In~ coined by individual manufacturers and
these usually consist of three of foUl parts. The trademark
name of the class comes first and is followed by words. letters.
or numbers. These describe the shade and other characteristics.
strength. physical fOlm etc. The alphabetical letters follo\'.'ing
the trade names may refer to the shade of the dye e.g ..

Y or G= Yellow (gelb)
R = Red (rot)

B = Blue

'.,
74 Textile Primillg

Thus, 'G' stands for (German word gelb=yellow) 'R' for

(German word rot-red) and 'B' for (German word blau=blue)
yellow-wish reddish and bluish tones respectively. For
example, Astrazon Yellow 3G is a basic dye having
considerable yellowish tone, Chrysophenine G is a direct dye
with a yellowish tone. Similarly, Acridine Orange Rand
Astrazon Orange R both are basic dyes and Rhodamine B
(basic dye) and Remazol Red B (reactive dye) with bluishtone.
Similarly, in Vat Pink R, 'R' indicates the red tone of the pink.
The repetition of the above letters indicates the greater
intensity of the tone. For example, methyl violet 6B is a very
deep purple (close to bluish) tone, similarly Alkali Fast Green
3B is a green acid dye having considerable bluish tone.
Sometimes the letters are used to represent the dass or
the dye. For example,in Alizarin Blue D, the letter 'I)'
indicatc~ that dye is a direct cotton colour. In Fuchsines, the
lettcr 'S' indicates that the dye is an acid. Sometimes the letters
are also used to represent the property of a dye. For example,
the letter 'F' is used to indicate that the dye is fast to ce11ain
agencies such as light. washing, etc. The letter 'L' appears in
the name of the dye, indicating that this dye produces a shade
on a fibre and is fast to light. Examples having this letter are
Ba~acryl Yellow 5 GL, Basacryl Yellow 5 RL and Basacryl
Violet RL, disperse dyes for polyester fibres such as Foron
Grev S-4 GL and Foran Scarlet E-2 GFL; direct dyes such as
Kitoll Fast Yellow 2 GL, Chlorantine Fast Blue 10 GL and
Benzo Fast Red S BL. In the case of reactive dye-;, belonging
to the chlorotriazine class, real:tivity has been found to depl::nd
upon the number of chlorine atoms present in the molecule. If
the moleculc of a dye has two chlorine atoms,they are highly
rC;.Ktive alld l:<.Ill be used in the cold I:ondition. Hence they are
termed as ('Old b/'lllld (wid dying) re{lct;l'f! dyes. Thus, their
names have the letter 'C' e.g., Premal:tive C and Goldazol C.
Textile Dyeing 75

There are also dyes which have only one chlorine atom.
These dyes are less reactive and, therefore, the dye solutions
have to be heated for their greater reactivity. Thus they are
termed as hot brand (hot dyeing) reactive {(res and hence their
names have the letter 'H', e.g. Procion Hand Premactive
H.The letter T generally indicates that the dye belongs to a
special class of vat dyes, the solubilished vat dyes. They are
subdivided into various groups such as Ik,I'w
, I 11 depending on
the condition of temperature used. For example, Ik group of vat
dyes are employed in the cold condition,i,e., at 20-30° C.
Further, I", and In group of vat dyes are employed under
conditions of temperature 30-40°C and 50-60°C
respectively.The letters 'N' and 'K' indicate that it is vat dye
which can be applied to cellulosic fibres by a particular method
of dyeing involving normal and cold temperature conditions
respectively e.g., Indanthrene Golden Yellow GK, Indanthrene
Bri11iant Orange RK. Algol Yellow GCN, Caledon jade Green
BN. Hence the intensity of the tone, of the colour condition of
temperature of dyeing are indicated as in Indanthrene Yellow
GK. Indanthrene Yellow 4 GK. Indanthrene Yellow 5 GK and
lndanthrene Yellow 7 GK.
The commercial names as compared to the nomenclature
are short, symbolic and simple even for a layman in trade,
Chemical nomenclature may often lead to confusion. The main
drawback of this system of nomenclature is that the same dye
has been given various names by different manufacturers, e.g.
rose-red dye is named either by pararosaniline, magneta or
fuchsllle.
 4
Textile Printing

Digital Textile Printing

Digital colour printing technology is sparking a fundamental

change in the textile and apparel industry. Traditionally, to
create printable designs for fabric, colour separations and
screens or rollers had to be used for the transfer of designs to
fabric. Digital textile printing is the process of creating
printable designs for fabric on a computer, which can be sent
directly from the computer to fabric printing machinery without
the use of screens and colour separations. This r~volution in
digital image processing has necessitated new ways of thinking
about textile design and production. A large percentage of the
research involving the digital printing of textiles has focused on
how the technology will affect marketing and merchandising
strategies in the textile and apparel industry. However, we have
found little research on the design capabilities of digital textile
printing.
In assessing the potentials and limitations of digital textile
printing technology, the following issues were evaluated
according to how they affect design approach:
I) printing on fabrics of similar structure. but differing fiber
content.
Textile Prillting 77

2) printing on textiles of various texture and stmcture,

3) repeat design versus non- repeating image creation,
4) photo- realistic imagery,
5) variations in size/ scale,
6) changes in visual perception of motifs and imagery due to
change of scale and repeat,
7) garment style and repeat print design integration.
8) limits of file size/ transportability with contemporary
software and hardware,
9) colour matching and processing,
10) allowance for design correction and modification at any
time without significant schedule delays or cost increases.
Digital textile printing affects the apparel industry by:
a) reducing the time- cycle for product development,
b) reducing the time required to produce to order, and
c) changing textile design techniques and capabilities.
Industry experts predict that the textile and apparel industry
will adopt digital textile printing when the systems can meet
economic and performance standards that will allow firms to
meet their customers' needs and produce profit. The design
factors of digital textile printing ultimately affect the economic
and performance standards of these printers by providing new
opportunities for niche market products that include image
enhancements not previously possible in traditional textile
printing. The biggest plus of digital printing of fabric-
especially for small textile companies- is that they can get a
strike- off done at a very reasonable cost; If they were to do it
the traditional way with offset printing, they would spend
anywhere from $200 to $1, 000 on film separations before they
78 Textile Printing

even print it. .. , they might only pay $200 to $ I, 000 for the
final product with digital printing methods. Future innovation
will include evaluation of these issues and of design
approaches that companies in the industry have adopted for the
use of digital textile printing technology.
Physical. chemical, and economic limitations are
challenging those who are developing direct digital printing
technology for textile applications. Some involve refinements
to current technologies, while others involve the development
of new digital printing methods. Strategies involve not only
changes to the printing mechanism, but also to the substrate,
inks, software, printing environment, material handling, and
curing equipment. Both chemical and physical processes are
used in different digital printing technologies that have never
been designed with textile printing in mind. Issues that are
inherent to ink jet printing include:
1. Colour calibration and management
2. Production rates
3. Print quality
4. Chemistry
5. Materials handling
6. Environmental controls
7. Reliability
8. Consistent colour supply
9. System integration

Ink- jet dispersal pattems

Electrostatic technology originally was developed as a means

of imaging with charged particles over wide areas. In
electrostatic printing, paper specially treated to be surface
conductive is passed first over an electrically charged head to
Textile Printing 79

positively charge the image area, and then over a developing

station to attract negatively charged toner particles. The
particles are fused to the paper by physio-chemical means in a
non- contact manner.
In continuous ink jet printing, a stream of ink droplets is
generated through a nozzle under constant pressure. A media
(fabric. for instance) is mounted on a rotating drum. Four
separate inks (in the colors cyan, magenta, yellow and black)
are forced through these nozzles by high- pressure pumps.
Whatever ink is not needed to produce an image is deflected
into a reservoir. This excess ink then is filtered and pumped
back into the ink supply. Continuous ink technology produces
near photographic color and image quality. Drop- on- d~and
is an ink jet technology that operates somewhat like a coffee
percolator. When the ink in the print cartridge's firing chamber
is heated, a vapor bubble forms, expands and forces the ink out
through a nozzle. When the heat is turned off. the bubble
collapses and the printhead is ready for another cycle. This
cycle can occur several thousand times a second (hertz rate) for
each nozzle.
Airbrush/ valve spray: airbrush/ valve spray printers use
electromagnetic valves to control the movement and ejection of
ink. Digital carpet printing and large- format advertising
banners are printed through this method on very large printers
that have digitally controlled traversing airbrush spray heads to
print low- resolution images. These machines print on paper.
vinyl and fabrics like canvas.

Heat-transfer printing

Printing on polyester fabric is being done today using

electrostatic dye sublimation.
80 Textile Printing

Laser (thermal transfer)

During thermal wax transfer printing, heat melts and fuses

colored wax from film onto paper. The printing is a one- color-
at- a- time CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow and black) process.
Thermal wax transfer technology is in may ways inherently
superior to ink jet technology in that it has a very intense color
image, is water and UV resistant, and potentially is faster.
The complexity of textile printing, with its variety of fiber
contents, textures, finishes and inks, requires special technology
depending on the application. Issues of color fastness related to
crocking (the rubbing off of color), wash- fastness (color
transfer or loss in water), fading (due to sunlight or ultra- violet
light) are very important factors when attempting to print on
fabrics of varying fiber content. Metamerism (the color defect
in which printed or dyed surfaces appear to change colors
under different lighting situations) may also cause problems.
Encad's digital textile printing system produces industry-
standard perfonnance in wet- and dry- crocking values on light,
medium, and dark shades. The results are extremely good on
cellulose, polyester, silk, and wool, and the process is water
resistent and can be presented as a proposed product applicable
to many textile design communities worldwide.
One of the oldest methods for using ink jet printers to
create digitally printed fabrics is by using the heat- transfer
process of -printing. Ink jet printers can be used to print
disperse dyes to paper, which can then be sublimated to fabric
through the application of heat. A company that has been
actively promoting their sublimation system for textile printing
is SubtiJet. A key advantage of the SubliJet system (heat
transfer process) is that it can be used on a wide variety of
surfaces and substances. While ink jet transfer can only be
used to apply images to fabrics, and dye diffusion transfer can
only be used to coat fabrics and pre- coated ceramics, the
Textile Pril/ting 81

SubliJet system can be used to place an image on any synthetic

(polyester- based) fabric. coated ceramics, metals, glass, wood,
plastic, mylar, marble, or any other polyer coated smface.

Printing textiles of different structures

Digital printing is a non-contact printing process and therefore

is relatively independent of surface contour. It can be a major
benefit ill the processing of various fabric types. In addition.
the chemistry of ink-jet pigments produces excellent color
quality on both cotton and silk. Other key factors may rely
more on how well the fabric feeds through the printer without
losing stability, stretching or distorting the design, or drastically
impeding the transfer of color to the cloth. Head height might
be an issue on pile fabrics or highly textured surfaces, so it
must be possible for the user to easily adjust the head height.
For example, the ENCAD 1500TX wide- format ink jet printer
can be adjusted, but only by a small variance, so very heavy
weight fabrics are not likely to be able to pass through the
printer.
Seiren, a textile printing company from Japan, has
developed a digital printing system can be used with any type
of fabric -both synthetics and naturals- including sheers, lace,
textures, knits and pile fabrics such as velvets and velours.
Their digital textile printing system, called Viscotec, does
incredibly sharp printing on velour, and in Japan, digitally
printed velour wall hangings, some with photographic images.
are popular.
Decorative fabrics, which tend to be used in greater
lengths, will be better able to take advantage immediately of
digital printing's freedom from repeats. Currently, the size of a
design is limited to the size of the screen on the rotary printer.
After the drum has made one revolution, the pattern is
82 Textile Printing

repeated. Because digital pnntmg has no screens, a sheet,

bedspread. carpet, or window treatment can be printed in which
the elements of the design are never repeated. For example.
instead of the current offspring of Disney movie characters
repeated every 18 inches, a sheet or bedspread could be created
from an actual scene in the movie. In fact, Disney Studios may
already be on to this idea. Home furnishings experts who saw
Disney's Toy Story, the first movie to be completely computer
generated, may have noted that the visual" Buzz Light year"
bedspread created for the boy's room was a single design that
filled the entire bedspread. In today's reality of rotary printing.
that bedspread could not have been commercially mass-
produced. In Seiren's factory in Japan, there is a textile wall
hanging containing. an image captured during one of the Apollo
missions. an ,18- foot- long continuous view of the world

Photo realistic imagery

Photo realism opens the possibility for layered imagery.

ghosting effects, an extended color gamut, and a number of
possibilities that would not have been cost effective or even
possible to produce through tradional printing methods. In
creating digitally printable imagery for textiles, the designer
can incorporate the use of high- resolution images to push the
limits of photo- realistic printing. The use of high- resolution
images is a technically limited issue that relates to the ease of
use with currently available hardware and software and the
current (and yet constantly changing) storage and transport
media for dealing with large file sizes. ENCAD guarantees that
their printer can be used with "today's most popular Mac and
PC software." This has yet to be fully tested and verified,
simply due to the relative infancy of the technology as is it
being used for textile printing.
Textile Printing 83

There is a generally accepted range of motif sizes that are

currently compatible for use in apparel and are traditionally
understood to relate to the size of the human form. How will
the perceptions change with the use of a technology that can
essentially ignore those limits and produce yardage of fabric
where the printed design need never repeat? Entire garments.
sofas, curtains, bedspreads, etc., could be printed with one
single large- scale motif as the design effect. Perhaps a
designed product could have only a portion of a motif, where
the intention is to view that product with others as a means for
recognizing the overall motif.

Repeat print design integration

Through the integrated use of textile and apparel design

software, printable designs can be tailored directly to pattern
pieces for a garment. By registering the textile print designs to
each pattern shape and graded size for a garment, fabric
designs can become more personalized and body specific. [TC]
2 has already begun research in this realm in their effort to
integrate body scanning technology, digital textile printing and
computer- aided design into the apparel manufacturing industry.
By registering perfectly the textile print designs to each pattern
shape and graded size for a garment, fabric designs can become
more personalized and body specific. The printed fabric
yardage would appear as though it has finished garment parts.
colored and sized to fit, that can simply be cut out and sewn
together to create a finished garment.
Usability of the software and hardware involved in digital
textile printing is determined by how well the systems can
handle the large computer files that are needed to be able to
print large images. Many of the rasterization and spooling
software packages that have been developed are specific to an
operating platform. so files must be converted and saved in
84 Textile Priming

formats that are acceptable across platforms. This may

ultimately effect the design capabilities of digital printing for
textiles as it relates to the file formats that are specific to the
more industry specific textile design software packages.
From the design standpoint, digital printing presents none
of the color limitations of traditional printing. Seiren's Viscotec
system offers a pallet of 16.7 million colors. An infinite
amount of colors can be added to a print without added
expense-with almost photographic quality on certain fabrics.
Color is also an issue from the standpoint of both color control
and color models. CAD users already have learned the inherent
problem of color discrepancies between the computer monitor
and proofs printed on paper. Printing on textiles adds even
more variables, as colors can shift with both the type of ink
used as well as the fiber content and structure of the fabric.
The color issue, as it relates to the digital printing of textiles,
will require a new thought process in the type of products that
are developed. The design challenge of designing for process as
opposed to spot colors provides the opportunity to create
designs that were not viable through conventional screen
printing and designers must learn to design for the new tool.
It is important to remember, though, that process color
printing has a smaller color gamut that produces less accurate
color matches than spot or flat color printing. Recently,
ColorS pan has released their wide format printer for textiles,
dubbed the Fabrilet. This 12 color printer addresses the need
for a wider color gamut by allowing the user to either add
extended colors for process printing, such as orange, blue or
green; or the extra color cartridges (beyong the regular CMYK)
can be used to print a simulated spot color (printing only that
color on a given area).
The transformation of digital design ideas into production
items will allow wider access for those who wish to experiment
Textile Printing 85

with the design process, in education and the design industry

(CAD Infinitum). A design idea can be drastically changed
almost instantly, and then simply removed with an "undo"
command, allowing for less emotional stress in the changing of
and experimenting with the design. This potential for creative
design exploration is inherently available with digital printing
technology for textiles. A designer can test their design
variation immediately by sending their digital file to printing
machinery and witnessing the unvieling of their design on
fabric. If the design is not a success, the print job can be
halted. and a new variation created. This is an incredible
difference from previous methods of proofing designs on
fabric, because there is no need for the production or changing
of patterned screen or rollers.

Advlltages and disadvantages

The application of digital printing for the preparation of

samples, together with the production of shol1 outputs for final
products are growing significantly. Computers' processing
speeds will increase, as well as those of printing machines. The
widths of the machines start to get nearer to the widths
normally used in decoratioll, and are already enough for
dressmaking. Companies manufacturing textile colourings are
developing ink ranges for digital printing, including acid
colourings, reagents and even pigments.
Digital technology is already being used nowadays for the
production not only of samples but also for usable products.
One of the limiting factors in this technology is the rate of
production. which is still low with regard to traditional
printing. Many new markets are being developed where digital
technology provides a unique solution that is not possible using
conventional technology. Advantages of digital printing:
 86 Textile Printing

~
Instant change of design- without time-offs.
Samples and production using the same technology.
The engraving of screens is ne. necessary.
\ Lower use of colourings and chemical products.
More ecological.
It needs less labour.
It shortens communication lines - from the demand to the
product.
It minimises stocks.
It reduces delivery time (up to a limit).
Possibility of photo-realism with precision and fine detail.
There is no additional cost for the addition of a greater
number of colours.

Dig!tal printing systems have been successfully applied in

ofimatics for years. Also in graphic arts, in large format
printing. In order that they can be successfully applied in the
textile industry, digital printing techniques must comply with
the following requirements:

Equivalent results to conventional production techniques.

Simple and reliable technology requiring the least
maintenance possible.
Reproducible printing results.
Significant cost reduction.
Low investment costs.

The technique that best complies with these requirements is

inkjet printing. An inkjet image is produced by the projection
Textile Prill/in!? 87

of small individual drops over a substrate. Colours are formed

by Digital Textile Printing the additive mixture of up to 12
process colours. The ink required for the printing is normally
generated in an appropriate amount for the area to be coloured,
which means the lack of excess or waste.

Pigmentary Printing System

Way back in the mists of time, ancestors began to dye fibres

using a decoction of vegetable dyes with fixative properties.
Far more recently. in the 1940s. the nascent plastics industry
started to produce synthetic resins which people quickly
realised could act as binders in pigment pastes for printing.
Today, industrial society is becoming aware of environmental
problems. all the more so because the current levels of air and
water pollution are making environmental protection an
inescapable necessity. This phenomenon has led to attempts to
develop a pigmentary printing system involving either low
levels of solvents or none at all.As a result, the last few years
have seen an increasingly sharp drop in the use of solvents.
Throughout the world, efforts are currently being made to
entirely replace conventional printing colour solvents with less
polluting and more modern substances.

Emulsion

This refers to the dispersion of one non-mixable liquid in

another. One of the liquids is present in the form of tiny
droplets coated in the other liquid. To obtain and maintain this
metastable state, need auxiliary products such as emulsifying
agents and proteciiv~ colloids, to prevent the emulsion from
'breaking'. Practical example. home made may on naise.
containing water and oil. needs egg as its emulsifying agent .
...
88 Textile Printing

The textile industry uses two types of emulsion, known as:

- oil-in-water
- water-in-oil
In the case of oil-in-water emulsified thickeners, the extremely
high number of emulsified solvent droplets are not rigid. As a
result, an emulsion subjected to a mechanical stress will lose
some of its viscosity, recovering it when this stress is reduced:
phenomenon of thixotropy. This flow behaviour produces
optimum effects in pigmentary printing, as the reduction in
viscosity which occurs when the printing is carried out ensures
a good transfer of the colour (vividness) onto the support.

Solvent-free pigmentary printing

Solvent-free colour printing is the simplest and most

environmentally-friendly method of textile printing. It has now
reached a decisive stage, as succeeded in improving the
fastness of pigmentary textile printing within a relatively short
period of time. Initial differences in the feel and brightness
resulting from solvent-free printing as opposed to printing
using emulsified thickeners have been eliminated, thanks to
continuing development and the use of appropriate additives.
Therefore capable of printing patterns with perfectly clear
outlines.

Viscosity

The consistency of the printing colours has a considerable

influence on the success of the printing operation, as excessive
penetration by the colours reduces vividness and the softness of
the surface.
Textilt' Primillg 89

Today, colour pnntmg without white spirit is vastly

superior to printing using emulsified thickeners, as far as
behaviour during application is concerned. Synthetic thickeners
tend to swell a great deal, though they do pre vent the printing
colours from drying too rapidly.
Resistance to rubbing while damp is obtained by
thermofixing the fibre. The length and temperature of the fixing
process vary according to the nature of the polymer used.
In the case of purely water based printing colours, the
pigment is maintained on the surface using a combination of
appropriate synthetic thickeners, together with special auxiliary
products. Today, the resulting brightness and the intensity of
the colouring are equivalent to those of the low-solvent system.
The greater the penetration of the fibres by the printing
colour. the greater the lack of softness to the touch. It is
therefore particularly important to reduce colour penetration in
the fibres and to apply only a small quantity of printing colour,
by adjusting viscosity and choosing the appropriate printing
conditions. These measures can be accompanied by the use of
flexible binders and softeners.
The pigments used in the printing colours are water and
solvent insoluble. They therefore produce prints resistant to dry
cleaning. Pigmentary printing colours can be applied to
practically all types of fibres. Differences in surface and the
chemical nature of various fibre types naturally lead to
variations in adhesion and resistance of the printing.
Nevertheless. by using adapted formulations, excellent levels of
fastness can be obtained on most fibres.
PEBEO took all these criteria into account when it
developed its SET ACOLOR range of fabric colours in the
seventies. Thanks to their advanced technical characteristics,
they rapidly -surpassed their rivals, becoming the leading
90 Textile Pri1lting

product range. Since then, SETACOLOR has regularly

capitalised on technological advances in the field of
polymers--customers have come to expect nothing less from
this market leader.
Today. it is public knowledge that in 1962, introduced the
large, unprimed cotton canvas to the art world, doing away
with the immemorial role of the frame. Within just a few years,
this innovation had spread throughout France, known as the
"Free Canvas". At that early stage in career, to use
commercially available paints, that is, opaque acrylics.
However, when found i.t necessary in t 975 to return to colour
and exclusively to the three primaries, artistic criteria dictated a
number of strict conditions.
To start with, to find a paint medium that would ensure
the thorough impregnation of the unprimed cotton canvas. It
was this medium that posed the most difficult problem, as it
had to have many strictly defined properties if it was to fulfil
its precisely assigned role. These included an absolutely matter I

finish, a high pigment density, transparency, fluidity and yet an

unctuous consistency (i.e. neither too thin nor too thick). It is I

easy to imagine the difficulties encountered if add yet another

vital condition: flexibility of use. In effect, it had to possess the
ease and spontaneity of water-colours, satisfying the attendant
requirement of a straight and direct stencilling technique, with
no going back and no regret.

Quality Inspection Systems

Quality control is one of the most difficult tasks in the high

volume textile printing industry. The speed (ranging from 20 to
100 meters/minute) at which the web (up to a width of 3.20
meters) proceeds through the different printing stages makes
extremely hard the inspection task by human operators.
Texti/e Prilltillg lJl

Human inspection of the printed fabric requires frequent

worker replacement. due to the psychologically and visually
demanding nature of the task. However, there is a major need
for consistent quality inspection systems in the textile printing
industry. due to the frequent appearance of repetitive defects in
the printed web.
A reliable defect inspection system is most important in
order to achieve a better quality of the product at the final
stage. Among the most common types of defects that appear at
the plinting phase, we can mention the following ones:
Continllolls or periodic spots: The development of small
adherences of threads or cloth shreds. breaks or
unevenness on the fibers, tint drops, etc., can give raise to
repetitiw stains (repetitions at a fixed length of 640 mm.
the cylinder rapport length) that ruin the whole printed
length during all the time they remain undetected. This
kind of fault is definitely the most recurring and
economically ~ignificant of all.
Fails on the synchrollism (~l the printing cylinders: When
a slight phase offset appears among the cylinders, .the
printed areas can overlap or get apart, giving rise to an
objectionable visual appearance of the result.
Ll/ck of dye due to blocked pipe or empty col/fainer: If the
dye supply to a cylinder decreases. the whole or a part of
the design will lack the pattern corresponding to that color.'
This defect appears in cases where the printing pattern
includes small areas for certain colors, which can pass
unnoticed. ruining hundreds of meters of fabric.
D((ecti\'(' pigment condition ill one or more of the lIsed
dyes: The color achieved at the printing does not match
exactly the one required by the customer order. These four
kinds of defects are responsible for nearly the whole
92 Textile PrilltillX

defective textile fabric after the printing stage. The

artificial vision inspection system developed is able to
detect three of these four different faults. The last one is
the only kind of defect which still requires human
intervention, due to the nature of the problem. Obviously,
the performance of a human inspector is highly variable.
Fatigue and loss of attention are serious problems difficult
to solve, even with short working sessions. The artificial
vision inspection syslem presented helps efficiently the
human operator to promptly detect and locate every single
defect even at a high printing speed with a minimum
human effort. This way the quality of the product is kept
under strict, predictable bounds.

Computer visioll illspection system

A computer vision inspection system for quality control of the

printing process discussed in this section. Generally such as
system is designed around a cluster of networked computing
nodes. The input data is obtained by means of an image
acquisition system based on high resolution color line-scan
cameras. while the processing results are translated into a
graphical presentation and a laser pointer. The cluster is
organized in ;:1 three level hierarchy, where the leaf nodes
support the heaviest computational task, whereas the root node
performs a set of different functions directly related to the user
presentation with the processing results. The intermediate
nodes provide the system with the input data, consisting on
digital images of the scanned printing. In addition to that, they
also perform a preprocessing of the images and a
postprocessing of the data resulting from the inspection phase.
The preliminary results show an acceptable rate of false
positives for a high accuracy setting of the system. The long
processing time makes the inspection system specially useful
Textile P,.illti/lg 1)3

for long printing series, helping the human inspector to avoid

significant lengths of printed fabric ruined by undetected
repetiti ve printing defects.
The inspection method is based on acqumng an initial
supervised template image and registering each test image
against the template. Then, the test and template images can be
compared using a classical feature-based matching method. No
restriction is placed on the complexity, number of colors or any
other characteristic of the printed pattern. The quality of the
initial acquisition of a correctly printed, visually supervised
template image must be checked by the operator to guarantee a
good model construction. This initial supervision does not
cause any disadvantage or added cost. since it must be carried
out anyway, being a part of the relatively complex startup
phase of the printing process. The only new task for the
operator is in this case to push a button once the printing which
i~ coming out from the cylinders is considered correct.

Rigid glohal registratio11 step

At least three complete periods of the design (plus some

additional image rows) are read into memory in the template
acquisition phase. Any test image will be subsequently
registered against this template image using a simple global
rigid registering method. The global registration step is
performed computing the best cross-cOlTelation of a previously
selected window of the template image against the
corresponding window of the test image at a number of
possible translations. Since a moderately accurate estimation
of the current position of the test image respect to the template
is computed by considering the information provided by an
optical encoder, the global registration is highly constrained
and can thus be performed very quickly.
94 Textile Prillfilll:

The window which will be cross-correlated can be chosen

at random, but used a more robust alternative based on using
the window with the highest variability (and the longest
repetition through the rapport length). This window can be
found computing an auto-correlation function of this window
around its initial location. and selecting the window with the
clearest peak in the origin for ttl';; function. This way, low
contrast areas which would not lead to clear peaks in the cross-
similarity function. are not taken into account. Moreover, this
method contributes no additional cost to the test phase, since
the window selection is performed only once, on the template
Image. before inspection starts.

Elastic local registration step

Once the test image is aligned with the template image as

accurately as possible. a number of differences may remain
between both. Most of these differences are caused by elastic
lii<;tortions of the fabric, due to the mechanical stress incurred
in its high speed movement under the camera. The correction
of these differences often requires a non-linear deformation of
the test image. A specific procedure to perform this
deformation.

Matching step

The last important step in the inspection process is the

matching of the test image against the template. to which it
should be now perfectly aligned. A number of possible
matching strategies have been proposed. Feature-based
technique which entails extracting a feature vector from each
pixel of the test image, comparing the feature vector to the one
extracted beforehand for the corresponding pixel of the
Textile Priming 95

template image, and deciding if the difference is under an

acceptable tolerance threshold or not. The comparison is
performed using a distance measure which depends on the
features extracted. One of the feature extraction methods with
the best results is simply a reduced RGB map of the image
around this pixel. Actually, only the RGB color information of
some strategic pixels at the surroundings are stored at the
feature vector.
The distance measure used for the comparison between
the feature vectors is the well-known Minkowsky L I
(manhattan or city-block) distance measure. The meaning of the
distance values obtained at the comparison of the
corresponding template and test feature vectors of a pixel it is
simply a measure of the color difference, between the template
and the test, appreciated by an ideal human eye at a specific
spot of the image.

Implementation

The inspection system consists of two distinct parts: the

mechanical and hardware structure, responsible for the correct
data acquisition, and the application software that runs on it.
The inspection system makes possible the automatic search and
visualization of all the defects previously described, which
ari!'.e at the printing of the textile fabric.

Image acquisition

For the image acquisition, four DALSA CL-G I 2096- pixel

color line-scan cameras have been used to obtain the desired
resolution (four RGB images of 2000 x 1000 pixels
approximately to scan a full rapport of the printed fabric; this
makes a data size of 24.000.000 bytes per rapport, which can
 Textile PrintinR

be considered the Unit In this application). The cameras are

connected to four iMAGING ICPC[-AMDIG frame grabbers
plugged into four nodes of a computation cluster. As the fabric
sheet is carried along under the cameras at high speed, a linear
fluorescent light system improves and stabilizes the scene
illumination. Each line captured by the camera is transferred
via a RS-422 connection to the frame grabber, where the lines
are stored to finally compose a frame. The images generated at
the acquiring host node are sent to the other nodes through an
internal communications network.
The inspection system design also includes a computation
hardware which gives support to all the processing required by
the application. The cluster implemented for this part of the
inspection system is composed of 13 nodes in a 100 Mbps
Ethernet dedicated local area network. The cluster is physically
mounted in a rack, installed next to the printing machine.
Eight nodes of the cluster have dual pentium main boards.
with a symmetric multiprocessor internal arquitecture. Thus,
each of these nodes is able to host the execution of two child
processes of the inspection application. These nodes carry out
the heaviest computational task involved. In fact, there are
four virtual nodes (two real nodes mnning two processes per
node) exclusively dedicated to process the data produced by
each camera. All this computing support is completely
necessary to provide a useful response time, which must be as
short as possible, taking into account the demanding nature of
the task performed by the inspection system.
Acquisition nodes: In addition to the previous ones, there
are 4 nodes of a different kind: these are the hosts of the
frame grabbers that perform the function of acquiring the
image data, and at the same time carry out some of the
preprocessing of the images acqui-red. In this way, the
computational load among all the machines in the
inspection system is balanced.
Textile Prilltillg 97

Root node: There is still another last node that carries out
other functions. It is responsible of post processing the
results obtained by all the previous nodes, which helps to
decide the correct information that should be supplied to
the human operator. This information is transformed into a
representation of the region of the image where a defect is
detected, and a visual help to locate this region over all the
textile fabric being inspected. It also commands a laser
pointer through one of its serial ports. And it provides the
user-friendly interface to interact with the user. This
interface consists of a 21" monitor to visualize information
and a digitizing tablet to control the inspection system.
Thus, the steps followed by the program when a new test
image is captured are the following:
I. The acquiring node computes the global registration of' the
test image against the template image.
2. The same node performs a partitioning of the test image
and delivers each part, through the local network, to the
corresponding processing node.
3. Each of the processing nodes tries to find any differences
between the points of the test and the template images and
reports them to the corresponding acquiring node with one
or more sets of connected points which mark defects on
the printing.

4. The acquiring node preprocesses all these sets of points,

filtering the defects that doesn't meet a size criteria.
Afterwards, the list of the filtered defects are sent again to
the root node.

5. The root node receives a defect list from each of the

acquiring nodes and only shows the user with the most
important of them.
9X Textile Printing

6. Software support and application program The software

installed at all the nodes runs under the Linux operating
system. By default. Linux provides a vast variety of
libraries ready to be used, among them several parallel
programming environments like PVM] (Parallel Virtual
Machine) and MPI (Message Passing Interface). Using
MPL a complex hardware setting, where two different
kinds of communications are implemented (those involving
the ethernet. and those related with SMP) is seen by the
software like a collection of virtual nodes easier to
manage. Moreover. the developed source code is
independent of the platform. thus it is easily portable to a
different communications topology. The whole application
software has been written in C. As commented before. the
application code t!xecutes one of three possible threads.
depending on the node at which it is running:
There is one special thread which is only executed at
node providing the interface to the user, commanding
the laser pointer and managing some specific circuitry
related to the camera trigger frequency.
There is other thread partially dedicated to the image
acquisition and also cooperating in the preprocessing of
the images. One of the preprocessing tasks involves the
partitioning and delivering of the input data to a set of
nodes. This thread it is executed at nodes B I to B4.
There is still a third thread exclusively dedicated to
process the data received from the acquisition nodes.
This thread is executed at nodes C I to C 16.
The overall performance of the system is defined by two main
factors: speed and accuracy. This means that the inspection
system should warn of any defect as promptly as possible. The
system has been preliminary tested for a period of 10 days, in
which 58.855 meters of printed fabric were inspected. Over all
Textile P, illtillg 99

this testing period. the inspection system showed 2.284 warnings

of printing defects. After an exhaustive verification of every
warning, the following results were obtained:
26(;i of the warnings were due to tme printing defects.

9% were also correct warnings, but they were caused by

factors not related with the printing phase.

65% were false warnings.

The testing period was considered initially satisfactory, as
nearly all the interesting printing defects were detected. Also.
other defects frequently related to imperfections in the textile
fabric, as holes. wrinkles and sewed areas have been detected.
and are included into de 9% of the correct warnings.
Nevertheless. the inspection system still needs some
improvement in order to reduce the percentage of false
warnings produced. This is a complex task because the
difference between what is considered a true printing defect
and an admissible imperfection of the printing can be very
subtle. Moreover. this difference also depends on the specific
printing pattern and color combination of a printing design.
So it is very difficult to find a classification method
which reduces the misclassification percentage and at the same
time keeps the present accuracy. At this point. the main
drawback of the inspection system is the long period of time
needed to set up the inspection process (between 45 and 60
seconds. or 50 to 100 meters). Once this initialization phase is
over, the system offers an average rate of an inspection every 6
meters, which has been considered a barely performance for
this application.
 5
Sewing Technology

Synthetic suedes are available in a wide variety of fashion

colors. Synthetic suedes are an important fabric in the fashion
scene today. Th~y are easy to sew, easy to care for, and easy to
wear. When selecting a color for your syn-thetic suede fashion,
consider your complexion, hair coloring, and personal
preferences.
Select a color that will be a versatile addition to your
wardrobe and be-coming for you to wear. These fabrics are
available in a wide price range. Synthetic ~:uedes vary in fiber
content and structure, which affects their costs. Most are
polyester or a poly-ester-polyurethane blend. Some synthetic
suedes are constructed as a nonwoven fabric with a suede-like
nap on one or both sides.
Some synthetic suedes have a woven or knitted doth base
with a napped surface on one or both sides. They are usually
less expensive than nonwoven suede fabrics. Synthetic suedes
are available in two weights. The medium-weight fabric has a
crisp texture. Generally, this fabric does not ease well, so
patterns with close fitting curves, gathers, pleats, and intricate
seaming should be avoided.
SClI'ing Techllology 101

Fashions with yokes, patch pock-ets, pocket flaps. and

topstitching are good selections for medium-weight synthetic
suede. Coats. blazers, and other tailored styles are good choices
for these fabrics. A lightweight. drapable suede offers a softer,
more feminine fashion. Because of its light weight, it gath-ers.
pleats. and tllcks well. Blouses and dresses are good choices for
lightweight suede.
If you have not used the pattern before. make a trial
garment using denim, corduroy. or a heavy muslin. The ease
and drape of these fabrics are similar to that of medium-weight
suedes. If you choose to use a lightweight suede, select a fabric
with similar drape for your test garment. Make any necessary
altt.'rations in length; loca-tion of design details such as buttons.
buttonholes, and pockets; and ease. Transfer any alterations to
your pattern pieces accurately.
To determine the exact amount of fabric to pur-chase, do
a trial pattern layout. Because most syn-thetic suedes don't
ravel. some seam and hem allow-ances may be eliminated to
reduce the amount of fabric required-you may save as much as
'12-1 yd. of fabric. Before doing a trial layout. determine the
sewing method you will use-flat or conventional. The tlat
method of construction (usually recommended for nonwoven
~lledes) does not require standard seam or hem allowances. If
your pattern uses conventional seams and hems. it may be
adapted for the flat method.
However. if you are using woven or fabric-based synthetic
~uedes. which ravel, use the conventional method. After your
pattern has been altered to fit and ad-justed for the sewing
method, use the "with nap" lay-out on the pattern guide sheet
to do the trial layout. You can save even more fabric by
placing the grainline arrows as much as 30-45° off the fabric's
actual grainiine.
102 Textile Printing

Synthetic suede fabrics often have nap on both sides,

which makes putting on suede C03.ts. jackets. or vests difficult.
A lining will make these garments easier to put on, as well as
more comfortable. and will also co 'er construction details such
as darts and welt pockets. Lightweight woven polyester and
rayon fabrics are suitable for lining suede garments; choose a
silky smooth fabric that will allow garments to slip on eas-ily
over other clothing.

Make sure the fabric is wash-able and dry cleanable.

Choosing a solid color or color-coordinated print for the lining
adds an interest-ing fashion detail to your garment. Use fusible
interfacing of either woven or non-woven fabric. Be sure to
select interfacing with a weight compatible with your fashion
fabric.
Fuse a test piece of interfacing to your fabric to determine
the amount of steam and pressure required to achieve a good
fuse. A regular thread of spun polyester or cotton-wrapped
polyester is your best choice for sewing synthetic suedes. If
your garment requires topstitching thread. be sure to test it on
your ma-chine.
Topstitching thread requires a larger needle than regular
thread; try a size 16 (90). Preshrink the suede, lining, and
interfacing before cutting. Follow the manufacturer's
instructions for washing the suede and lining fabrics. When
machine drying suede, don't use a dryer fabric softener sheet-
many synthetic suedes get oily spots from these fabric
softeners.
Instead, use a liquid softener added to the washer's rinse
cycle. After the fabrics have been preshrunk, press to re-move
wrinkles. If the fabric is off the grain, pull on the bias until the
grainline is straight. To preshrink the fusible interfacing, soak it
in a ba-s:n or hot water for about 20 minutes. To dry, blot ex-
Sell'ing Technology 103

cess water from the interfacing and put aside to dry. Do not
machine dry fusible interfacings.
Preshrink zippers and other fabric items to be used in
your garment. As you prepare to cut your fabric. decide
whether you want the nap to go up or down. If the nap goe~
up. the fabric will have a dark, rich color; if the nap goes
down, it will have a frosted color. Check the fab-ric to
determine which effect is best for your fashion and fabric. Fold
the fahric with the right sides out. Place pat-tern pieces on the
fabric as required for the "with nap" pattern layout.
Pin through the pattern and the top layer of fabric only.
Place pins in the seam allowance if possible, but do not worry
about pin marks-they will close up by themselves when steam
pressed. If you do not want to put pins into the fabric, use
pattern weights to hold pattern pieces in place. With sharp
shears. cut the fabric along the cutting lines of pattern pieces.

Cut as accurately as possible in order to eliminate the

need for trimming seams after they are sewn. This is especially
important on facing, hem. and collar edges. Cut the interfacing
and lining fabrics as recom-mended on your pattern guide
sheet. Instead of cutting notches and darts, mark them with a
marking pencil. tailor's chalk, or a sliver of bar soap.
To increase sewing accuracy, mark stitching lines of darts
between dots using a ruler. Be sure to indicate the locations of
pockets, the center front, and matching dots. Fabric-backed
suedes are only sewn using conven-tional techniques used to
sew other napped fabrics such as corduroy, velveteen. or
velvet. Nonwoven synthetic suedes may be sewn using either
conven-tional methods or special techniques, including the use
of fusibles, glue, unfinished edges, flat hems, and lapped
seams.
104 Texfile Priming

Use a new, sharp sewing machine needle size 9-11 (60-

70). Set the stitch length for 10-12 stitches per inch or longer,
as short stitches tend to weaken the fabric. Sew a test seam
using two or more layers of suede. It may be necessary to:

I) decrease the presser foot pressure to allow for even

feeding;
2) use an even feed or roller presser foot to help prevent
"creeping"; or

3) loosen the upper thread tension for a balanced stitch.

Synthetic suede tends to grab the needle as it goes through the

fabric, causing skipped stitches or looping underneath. If the
machine is skipping stitches, try an all-purpose ballpoint or
leather wedgepoint machine needle. Use a throat plate with a
small hole to keep the fabric from being pushed through the
hole.
On a throat plate for zigzag stitching, use tape to partially
cover the hole. Moving the needle to the left or right position
on a zigzag machine might also help. When topstitching with a
heavier thread, use a larger needle. To prevent puckering, sew
with the fabric under tension.

Hold the fabric taut in front of and behind the presser

foot, letting the fabric feed evenly. Do not stretch the fabric.
Because suede fabric tends to "creep," baste all seams together
before stitching. Use hand basting, fusible web, invisible tape,
or basting tape to hold fub-ric pieces together. When using
basting tape, do not stitch through it-the stitches may skip.

Tie thread ends instead of backstitching to prevent

enlarging the stitching holes or cutting the edge of the fabric
with the needle. Because of their stiffness and bulk.
conventional seams and edges must be held flat. They may be
flat-tened by topstitching through the garment and the seam
SewillR Teel/notoRY \05

allowan~es, or by placing fusible web close to the stitching

between the seam allow-ance and garment.
Some seams such as the following are easier to sew and
more comfortable to wear if sewn using conven-tional plain
seam construction:
Set-in-sleeve armhole seam.
Sleeve underarm seam.
Pants inseam.
Pants crotch seam.
The flat or lapped method of construction gives a smooth.
sporty appearance to the garment. Leather is often sewn this
way. Use these guides to determine which sections to overlap.
Front edges overlap back edges on regular shoulder and side
seams (unless the garment has darts; then the rIat section
overlaps the dart sec-tion to cover dart ends).
To make lapped seams, trim away the seam allow-ance on
the overlap section. Lap the edge of the over-lap to the
seal11line of the underlap. To hold the seam in place and to help
prevent creeping. fuse baste along the scamlinc using a IA"-
wide (6 111m) strip of fusible web between the layers. or glue
the layers together.
Topstitch along the edge and again IA-3/8" (6 mm-l cm)
from the first row of stitching. Trim the inside seam allowance
close to the stitching if desired. Decorative hand or machine
stitches may be used on overlap seams. Taper darts gradually to
the point. Dimples or puckers at the dart point can be prevented
by fusing a I" (2.5 ~m) circle of interfa~ing over the point
before stitching. Make the last three or four stitches on the
edge of the interfacing. Darts will be less bulky if you slash.
trim. and fuse them flat to the garment.
106 Textile PrintillR

Flat constlUction eliminates bulk and provides a neatly

tailored finish. Trim interfacing to the stitching line and fuse.
Place suede layers wrong sides together. Stitch through all
layers 5/8" (1.5 em) from the cut edge. Stitch again \14-3/8" (6
mm-I em) from the edge. Trim close to the outer machine
topstitehing.
Topstitched Cut Outer Edges are difficult to topstitch
right on the edge. so cut pieces with a 1;4" (6 mm.) seam allow-
ance and trim after topstitching. This techniques works for:
CoIlars.
Collarless necklines.
Sleeveless armholes.
Garment front edges that button.
Sleeve band or cuff ends.
Belts. sashes. and ties.
Pocket tlaps or welts.
Simple machine-stitched buttonholes work well with nonwoven
suede. Machine stitch a box 1/8-1/4" (3-6 mm) wide around the
length of the finished buttonhole. Tie thread ends. Slash open
be-tween the stitches, being careful not to cut through the
stitching. Buttonho[es may also be machine made or bound.
Make a sample on 'leftover suede to determine which type to
use. Sew buttons in place using a small backing button to
prevent stress at the point of stitching.
In plain seams, use conventional constlUction tech-niques
to insert a zipper. To insert a zipper in a lapped seam. trim the
over-lap seam allowance below the zipper. Trim 11 2" (1.3 cm)
from the underlap seam allowance in the zipper area. Place the
under[ap over the zipper tape close to the coil. Topstitch next
to the zipper coil. Fo[d under the 5/ 8" (1.5 cm) extension on
the overlap.
Sewing Technology 107

Fuse in place and edgestitch the length of the zipper

opening. Place the overlap over the zipper along the underlap
seamline. Topstitch the zipper in place: continue topstitching
below the zipper opening down the rest of the seam. Make
hems in synthetic suedes 2" or less in width to avoid a heavy,
bulky look. One popular hem, a fused hem, is made by fusing
the entire hem allow-ance.
A turned hem is another easy hem. Turn up the hem
allowance and topstitch twice around the bottom, matching the
topstitching on lapped seams. On fabric-based suedes, zigzag or
overcast the raw edge to prevent fraying. Turned hems may be
used on sleeve edges, at tops of pockets, and for cuffs or bands
for the waist and sleeves. If the hem is curved, obtain a nice
finish by facing nonwoven suedes. Trim the hem to the de-sired
length.
Cut a facing to match the lower edge, about %" (1.8 em)
wide for jackets and sleeves and I Y2" (3.8 em) wide for skirts
and coats. Place the fac-ing under the hem, wrong sides
together, and topstitch twice. The stitching holds the facing
securely: the fac-ing will not fall down because it is the same
shape as the garment. Pressing is an important part of sewing
synthetic suede successfully. Pressing requires a lot of steam
and a press cloth. Whenever possible, press on the wrong side
of the fabric. Use a seam roll and pressing ham to help shape
the garment as you sew. Fusible web will help keep seams flat.
If necessary, use a pounding block to flatten seams.
Easy care is an important advantage of most syn-thetic
suede fabrics. They don't stretch, ravel, or wrinkle. Synthetic
suedes don't shrink or water spot. and the colors are fast with
regular laundering proce-dures. When caring for your synthetic
suede fashion, fol-Iow the. manufacturer's care instructions
carefully. In general, synthetic suede garments may be machine
washed and dried.
108 Textile Priflfil1R

However. don't use dryer fabric softener sheets when

machine drying synthetic suede garments; instead, use liquid
softener in the washer rinse cycle. Be sure to remove the
garment from the dryer promptly to prevent unnecessary
creases. If you prefer, synthetic suede garments may be dry
cleaned.
To care for garments between wearings. brush lightly to
refresh the nap of the fabric. A light steam pressing with a
damp pressc10th will remove any wrinkles. Synthetic suedes
burn easily. When wear-ing your garment. avoid people who
smoke-a light touch or stray ashes can burn your garment.

Maintenance of Sewing Machines

Sewing machines generally require the basic maintenance of

cleaning. oiling, and lubricating. These procedures are
recommended in the use and care booklet that comes with the
machine. It is the best reference for the specific care required
by your machine. Some machines are designed to be oil-and
lubricant-free so follow the directions in that booklet carefully.
If you do not have an instruction booklet for your sewing
machine. contact your local sewing machine centre to obtain
one. If they do not have one in stock. write to the manufacturer
of the machine to obtain one. Be sure to give the machine
name. model. serial number and the approximate age of the
machine.
When you have trouble with your sewing machine. a good
rule to follow is "Clean it first." Many problems are caused by
dust. lint or thread ends that have collected on the working
parts of the machine. Simply brushing lint and dust from the
machine each time it is used is a good way to prevent many
problems. Use the soft nylon brush that comes with the
machine or a narrow paint brush to dust away lint in the
Sl'II'il1g Techl1%X.'· 109

bobbin case, under the needle plate, and around the feed dog. A
needle or tweezers can be used to remove pieces of thread or
lint that cannot be brushed away. Cans of pressurized air are
also available to blow dust and lint away. In time, lint and dust
that are allowed to accumulate in a sewing machine can
become soaked with oil and/or lubricant and interfere with the
operation of the machine.
When this gummy grime is removed, the machine will
work more freely, and adjustment may not be necessary.
Removing this unwanted build-up requires more care and time
than everyday maintenance. We need the following equipment
and supplies for the job:
Pie or cake pan for soaking parts in cleaning fluid
Small screw driver
Large screw driver
Small adjustable wrench
Hammer (optional)
Small oil can (clean) for cleaning fluid
Cleaning brush (narrow, nylon)
Paring knife (or pocket knife)
Long needle or small crochet hook
Tweezers
Cleaning cloths
Fabric to test stitching

Small bottle or can of cleaning solvent that will not flash flame
at temperatures below 120" F. It is usually available at gasoline
stations or cleaning establishments. Never use gasoline: It IS
highly flammable. Never use carbon tetrachloride: it is very
110 Textile Prillting

poisonous. After assembling all supplies and equipment, unplug

and move the machine to a cleaning area that is well lighted.
Protect the floor and table top with newspapers. A good
floor or table lamp to light the work area from over your left
shoulder will be helpful. A flashlight is also helpful in adding
light in hard to see areas. As you clean the machine. it is best
to clean one area at a time. Remove only the parts that are
involved and be sure to note where each part is from. its
position. and which side is top. When removing parts,
remember that "left is loose and right is tight" on practically all
screws and bolts.
When using a screw driver, put the pressure on the push.
not on the twist. If a screw will not loosen easily. soak it with
cleaning fluid. Then set the screw driver in the slot and tap
sharply with a hammer before attempting to loosen. The
screwdriver blade should be as wide as the slot in the screw is
long. Always use a wrench-not plier.>-on holts.

First, remove the needle, presser foot. slide plate. throat

plate, bobbin case, and the face plate (if it comes off). Put them
in the pan and cover with cleaning fluid. Set aside to soak
while cleaning other areas.

Next. wrap the motor (if necessary) and wire with plastic
wrap to protect them from oil and cleaning solvent. Now. it is
time to begin work to clean the machine head. With a sharp
pointed tool. clean out all oil holes. Then. with your hand. tum
the hand wheel to run the machine.

At the same time, squirt cleaning fluid into all the oil
holes, on all bearings and on all other places where one part
ruhs against or tums within another. If the machine begins to
run hard. it is a sign that dirt or lint has jammed inside a
bearing. Continue running the machine and flushing with
Sewillg Techllology III

cleaning fluid until the dirt and gummed oil are washed from
the bearing.
When the machine runs easily again, tip the head and
flush the parts underneath the machine-all oil holes, bearing
and places that rub against or within another. Continue running
the machine by hand until it functions smoothly. To remove
any remaining dirt and oil. dip a cloth or bmsh in cleaning
fluid and scrub all parts of machine that can be reached.
Use a needle. knife or other pointed instrument to dig or
scrap away any remaining gummed dirt or lint in the feed dog.
around the bobbin case, and in other areas. Check the lower
tension of the bobbin case and the upper thread tension discs.
Pull a thread under the tension of the bobbin to remove dirt.
Pull a piece of cloth soaked in cleaning fluid back and forth
between the disc of the upper tension. Repeat with a dry cloth
to be sure no lint or thread is caught between them.
In addition to general cleaning, three areas need special
attention. They include the handwheel bearing and the clutch
assembly, the needle-bar and presser foot. and the hook and
bobbin areas assembly. When the handwheel assembly gets
gummy and dirty, it must be cleaned for the clutch to work-'
properly.
The clutch disengages the needle-bar when winding a
bobbin. Some new sewing machines refill the bobbin in its
regular position and a clutch is not necessary. In such
machines, it is not often necessary to remove the handwheel to
clean this area.
Lint is the primary offender in this area. The bobbin case
can be removed on all makes of machines. Use a dry bmsh to
clean out all lint. Remove any thread that may be wound up
around the hook shaft.
112 Textile PrilltinK

On many machines, the hook assembly can also be

removed for more complete cleaning. Place one drop of oil on
the exterior perimeter of the hook and the bobbin race to
lubricate if after cleaning. The face plate on most machines is
held in place with one or two screws. By removing these, the
plate can be easily removed for cleaning of the needle-bar and
presser foot bar.
On some of the newer machines, the face plate is a part of
a housing that is mounted on hinges, which makes it easy to
move the entire housing away from the bars and mechanisms
behind it. No other parts need to be removed for cleaning in
thi~ area. First use a dry brush to clean out all lint and other
foreign material. A small piece of cloth with a little solvent on
it can be used to clean the needle-bar and presser bar of any
gummy grease.
After thoroughly cleaning, place a drop or two of oil on
each shaft where it slides through the housing. Oil all other
moving parts according to your instruction book before
replacing face plate. To remove the clutch and handwheeL
loosen the small screw in the face of the locknut (the locknut is
the part that is turned to the left to release the clutch for
operating the bobbin winder). Next, unscrew the locknut. and
remove the washer and handwheel.
Most machines will have a washer that looks like one of
the three shown. Some makes will be slightly different. Notice
the position of the washer so you can put it back in the same
position. You may want to make a small scratch to identify the
side that goes "out". The handwheel should slide off the shaft
easi Iy. If the machine is driven by an external belt, this belt
will have to be removed before the handwheel will come off.
Gear driven machines will have a gear on the inside of
the handwheel. Clean the hand wheel, washer, and shaft.
Lubricate the shaft with two drops of oil and place a small
Sewing Techllology 113

amount of grease on all gears. Reassemble the handwheel and

clutch. If the clutch fails to operate, either because it will not
hold or fails to release, remove the locknut again and turn the
washer one half turn (180") and reassemble. The clutch should
then work properly. After thoroughly cleaning these areas,
reassemble the machine and run it by hand. It should run
smoothly if all parts have been replaced correctly. Do not plug
the machine in until all the cleaning fluid is dry.

Process of Oiling

Allow the machine to stand overnight so excess cleaning fluid

can evaporate before oiling and lubricating it. Check your
machine instruction booklet to determine the type of oil
lubricant to use and where to use them. Some machines have
bearings that are nylon or graphite-impregnated bronze and do
not require oil or lubricant.
Also. some machines do not need oiling because they are
designed with oil impregnated in the bearing castings. If your
machine does not require oil, do not use. Do not oil the tension
discs, the handwheel release or the belts and ntbber rings on
any machine. In the holes designated. and on all parts that ntb
against or within another, squirt a little oil. Run the machine by
hand to distribute the oil into all the bearings.
Use oil freely because all oil has been removed in the
cleaning process. If there are any wool or felt pads that feed oil
to parts. be sure they are well-oiled. For later oilings, one drop
of oil on each bearing and in each oil hole is enough. ILl~_a
good practice to oil the machine after each day's work or after
8 to 10 hours of use.
Even if you do not use your machine often. oil it
occasionally to keep the oil from drying and gumming. If the
machine requires a lubricant, lubricate the areas suggested. Use
114 Textile Prillfing

the lubricant recommended for your machine for best results.

After oiling and lubricating the machine, wipe away excess oil
and reassemble the machine. As you replace the parts that have
been soaking in the pan, do not force screws or parts into
place.
Lubricating the electric motor of your sewing machine
according to the manufacture's directions. Several newer
machines have electric motors with sealed bearings that never
need oiling. Lubricate motors that require oil or grease once a
year. One or two drops per bearing is sufficient; over-oiling
may ruin the motor.
A sewing machine company oil or a good quality light oil
is satisfactory to use. If you select a lightweight household oil,
be sure it says "non-gum forming" and "non-corrosive" on the
container. On a grease-fitted bearing, fill the grease cups once
a year. If the cord covering is not in good condition. tape it
with good quality electric tape or replace the cord.
The belt that connects the motor to the handwheel should
have just enough tension to keep it from slipping. On some
machines, the belt can be adjusted by slightly shifting the
position of the motor. Take good care of the rubber driving
ring or wheel on motors that drive machines by friction contact
with the handwheel. If this driving ring or wheel has become
flat-sided or unevenly worn, causing excessive vibration.
replace it with a new one.

Keep the handwheel clean and dry and the driving ring
adjusted firmly to the handwheel and in line, so the machine
will run with a minimum of vibration. Now thread the machine
and sew, using scraps of fabric to test the stitching. First, be
sure the needle is the proper length. Use the needle length or
number recommended in your manual. Second, use a needle
with a diameter that is suitable for the fabric and thread size.
Sewing Technology 115

Use of a larger diameter needle results in an unattractive

stitch with larger than necessary needle holes in the fabric.
Third, be sure the needle is straight and does not have a dull
point or burr. Fourth, choose needles for sewing special fabrics.
such as the ballpoint for knits and the wedge for leather. The
needle should be inserted in the needle-bar clamp, with the
long groove side of the needle on the same "ide as the last
thread guide, just above the needle clamp. It should be inserted
all the way into the clamp until it hits the stop pin.
On machine with adjustable needle-bar housing, adjust the
position of the needle-bar until the needle goes through the
center of the needle hole in the needle plate. Manufacturers of
some machines recommend use of the needle plate with the
round hole for straight stitching and the elongated hole for the
zig-zag stitch. Unless you use the proper needle plate, you may
experience skipped stitches when making a straight stitch. This
is especially true when sewing some synthetic fabrics.
The teeth on the feed dog should project above the needle
plate so that the bottom of the teeth, or serrations , are level
with the top of the needle plate when the dog moves the
material before the next stitch is made by the needle. A good
general setting is one that results in IOta 12 stitches per inch
of seam. On very thin and fine material, it may be necessary to
use a shOiter stitch for 14 to 16 stitches per inch of seam.
On leather or vinyl, a longer stitch may be more desirable.
resulting in 6 to 10 stitches per inch of seam. There should be
just enough pressure on the presser foot to hold the fabric on
the feed dog so that a uniform length of stitch is made. As a
general rule, heavy fabrics, require light pressure. Pressure may
be increased by pushing down on an inner pin, or decreased by
releasing an outer ring. Other machines may have a thumb
screw or a dial to regulate pressure.
116 Textile Priming

On slippery fabrics, loosely knitted fabrics, vinyl or

velvet. a roller-type pressure foot ma)' result in better feeding
than the standard presser foot. When darning, either reduce the
pressure on the presser foot or lower the feed dog on machines
with a drop feed button, or use a cover plate.

Upper and lower tension must be balanced to produce a

perfect stitch. The upper tension is located differently on
different machines. It may be on the face plate. on the face of
the needle-bar housing. on the front of the needle-bar housing,
or on the upper arm of the machine head. The lower tension,
located on the shuttle or bobbin case, is adjusted by a screw.
If two screws fasten the lower tension spring to the
bobbin case. adjust by turning the screw nearest the center of
the spring-not the screw on the end. If, during the cleaning, the
lower tension spring has been removed or its adjustment
changed. the adjusting procedure is the same as in the ordinary
use of the machine. That is, assume the lower tension to be
correct until proved wrong.
Make all adjustments on the upper tension. If the lower
tension has been disturbed. set both lower and upper tensions
so there will be a slight drag on each thread. Use the same size
thread on both bobbin and spool. Now, adjust the tension, take
a look at the stitching the machine makes. To help you to see
the stitches clearly, use contrasting colours of thread on the top
and in the bobbin.

Set stitch-length control for a medium length of stitch.

Fold a 6- to 8-inch square of sheeting or average weight cloth
and stitch diagonally across it at an angle of about 45". Now
inspect the stitching. In a perfect stitch, threads are locked in
the center. midway between the two layers of cloth. with no
loops on the top or bottom of the seam and no puckers in the
cloth.
SeH';lIg Tee/lIlolog.'" 117

If loops of the bobbin thread show on the top side of the

seam and the top thread is straight, the upper tension is tighter
than the lower. In this case, loosen the top tension. If loops of
the spool thread show on the underside of the seam and the
lower thread is straight, the upper tension is looser then the
lower and should be tightened.

Sewillg Techinllqe~' ill Overlock Machine

Sewing with an overlock machine is a bit different from sewing

with a conventional sewing machine. Some of the sewing
techniques used will require practice to become proficient.
When sewing with an overlock machine. be sure to fit the
garment before it is stitched. Because seams are trimmed as
they are sewn, it isn't possible to let out seams if the garment is
too snug.
Stitch through a variety of fabrics to deter-mine how
fabric weight affects the stitch qual ity. When the stitch is
properly adjusted, the upper looper thread will be smooth
against the right side of the fabric and the lower looper will be
smooth against the wrong side of the fabric. These threads will
meet and interlock evenly along the edge of the fabric. The
needle thread will be seen as a long straight stitch on the right
side and a shorter straight stitch, which is more widely spaced,
on the wrong side. If needle thread is too loose, increase the
needle tension and/or decrease either or both looper ten-sions.
If upper looper thread is too loose, tighten the upper
looper tension and/or loosen the lower looper. If the lower
looper thread is too loose, tighten the lower looper tension and/
or loosen the upper looper tension.
The stitch width of an overlock machine is deter-mined by
two or three factors. On some machines the stitch finger or the
cutting knife can be moved by turning a dial or loosening a
11M Textile Printing

screw. Or, l:hange the throat plate to one that has a wider or
narrower stitch finger. If the overlock uses two needles, the
stitch width can be adjusted by removing one of the needles.
This can be done only when a thn e-thread stitch is used.
The stitch length of an overlock machine may vary from 0
to 5 mm. The stitch can be adjusted by turning a dial, moving
a lever or loosening a screw. When sewing medium weight
fabric, use an av-erage stitch length-:~ mm. Delicate fabrics or
fabrics that ravel should be stitched with a shorter stitch-2 mm.
A I mm setting will produce a satin stitch and is used for
rolled hems. [f your machine does not have a seam allowance
guide, use masking tape to indicate the seam widths desired.
At the beginning of a seam, it is not always neces-sary to
raise and lower the presser foot. At the end of the seam,
continue running the machine until the thread chain is long
enough to bring under the knife blade to be cut. When seaming
many sections of a project. stitch from one piece to the next
without raising the presser foot or cutting the threads. To
secure seam ends try one of the following methods:
Thread the chain end into a large-eyed needle and slip the
needle under the seam's stitching until the chain end is buried
inside the seam. Stitch a few stitches, then fold the loose thread
chain so YOll stitch over it. At the end of the seam, stitch off
the_ fabric about Ij2 inch, raise the presser foot and turn the
fabric over. Place the fabric back under the presser foot lower
the foot and stitch about I inch before stitching off the fabric.

Use a seam fixative to glue the thread ends at the end of

each seam. This is especially use-ful when seams are crossed
by other stitching. Seams should be pressed directionally over
the stitching to smooth them, then pressed in the cor-rect
position. To avoid an impression of seam al-Iowances on the
right side of the garment, a piece of paper can be placed under
the seams as they are pressed. Because seam allowances of
Selrillg Techllology 119

overlocked seams are finished together, they must be pressed to

one side.
Horizontal seams usually are pressed up and shoulder
seams are pressed toward the back. Verti-cal seams usually are
pressed toward the center front or back. The seam of the sleeve
cap should be pressed toward the sleeve. To avoid bulkiness,
seams in hem allowances should be turned in the opposite
direction. When seams incorporate fullness, they appear less
bulky when they are pressed toward the smoother side of the
seam. Its best to avoid stitching errors when using an overlock
•
machine because once the seam edges are trimmed off. there's
little you can do to remedy the situation.
Two-thread overlock-Use scissors or rip-per to cut stitch
loops along fabric edge. Pull out cut threads. Three- and four-
thread overlock-Use scissors or ripper to cut stitch loops along
fabric edge. Pull on needle thread to re-move. Pullout all cut
loop threads. Chainstitch-Clip the needle thread, then pull the
looper thread.
Pins should be placed parallel to the edge inside the
seamline. Place the pin heads so they can be removed easily as
you sew. The knife blades will be damaged if they hit a pin as
you sew. Glue baste fabrics together with a water soluble glue
stick. Lightly dot glue along seamline about 2-3 inches apart.
Then. stick the seam allowances together with edges matching.
Glue stick is espe-cially helpful when matching plaids and
stripes.
Hand basting may be necessary on loosely v'oven fabrics
or when edges are very bias. When selecting thread for the
overlock. match the color of the needle thread because it is the
one that may show along the seam on the right side. You may
use a basic color. such as beige, white, gray or black, on the
loopers since these threads should not show. When changing
thread, tie machine thread to new thread using an overhand
knot. This will make the threading process simple.
120 Textile Priming

Remember to loosen ten-sion dials to allow knots to pull

through easily. Cut the needle thread before the knot gets to the
eye of the needle. Remove knot and thread the needle. It is
better to use all one type of thread when pos,-sible, all on
spools or all on cones. Once a spool of thread starts to break,
discard it and get another. To begin stitching at a specific point
other than a corner, pull threads off the stitch finger and place
fabric under presser foot to begin stitching.
After stitching around edges to beginning, overlap stitch-
ing about V2 inch and then sew off fabric edge. Secure threads
with a knot by threading thread ends under stitches or use a
seam fixative. When sewing curved seams, sew slowly. On out-
side curves. push the fabric into the presser foot so the edge
seems to be straight. On inside curves, pull the fabric gently to
straighten the edge. Be careful not to pull the fabric out of
shape in the bias areas. To turn outside corner. stitch one stitch
past the edge and raise the needle and presser foot.
Care-fully pull the thread chain off the prong that forms
stitches and turn the fabric to stitch the next side. Locate the
fabric, lower the presser foot and the needle and stitch. Stitch
each corner in the same manner. Or stitch along one side and
off the fabric. Then, stitch the next side until all sides are
sewn. To sew an inside corner, trim away all excess seam
allowance.
Stitch to the point where the knife blade reaches the exact
corner and stop. Pull the fabric toward you so the corner is
straightened out and finish stitching. Stabilize seams that need
to keep their shape by stitching twill tape or seam binding into
the seams. Place the tape so the needle stitches into the tape
without cutting it, or place a piece of cording (cro-chet yarn,
perle cotton, buttonhole twist) along the seamline and sew over
it.
Sell'ing Technology 121

Let the ends extend so they will be caught when the seam
is crossed by another row of stitching. Seams sewn with a
combination of conventional and overlock stitching can be used
in a variety of fabrics and garment styles. Finish seam edges
first using a two- or three-thread overlock stitch. Then. sew the
seams using conventional stitching. Press the seam allowances
open after they are stitched, unless other-wise instructed.
 6
Texile Finishing

Textile finishing is a very diversified sector due to the

processed raw materials, manufacturing techniques and
finalised products. Trends in fashions cause a continuous
change in colouring and functional finishing. The textile
finishing industry is characterised through a large number of
small and middle class companies. The product range, the
treatment processes, the specific wastewater yield and also the
use of chemkals vary widely among the individual companies.
The main processed raw materials used in textile finishing
industry are cotton, polyester, viscose, mixture of cotton with
synthetics and polyamide. Figure I presents a schematic survey
of textile finishing and following the main processes are short
described.

Wet Processes from Textile Finishing

Basically the wet processes from textile finishing are:
pre-treatment: includes scouring, desizing, mercerising.
bleaching etc.
dyeing, printing, whitening
functional finishing
 I TextIle FinIshIng I

I I I
I Finishing I
I I
I Pre-treatment I IDycinf!, Whiteninf! I I Printing I I End-control

1
- scorch
I
Exhaust process - cylinder printing
I
high finishing
- desizing
- decoct
I
Foulard process
- film printing
- laser-gravure
I
calender
- mercerising
- thermosetting
- roto-gravure
I
roughing
- crabbing cord
- washing

Figure I: SlIrvey 011 Textile Finishing

N
'jJ
124 Textile Pri1l1illX

Pre-treatment

The term "pre-treatment" summarises all types of wet finishing

processes like scouring, desizing, mercerising. bleaching etc. of
the fibres. fabric or yarn. The employed techniques depend
upon factors such as type of process, type and quality of
materials and desired effects of the final product.

Scouring

Process for removing natural and acquired impurities from

fibers and fabric (e.g. wax, pectins). It also supports subsequent
bleaching and dyeing processes. Scour baths usually contain
alkalis. antistatic agents. lubricants, detergents, emulsifiers.

BLeaching

Process to whiten cotton, wool and some synthetic fibers by

treatment in solutions containing hydrogen peroxide. chlorine
dioxide, hypochloride, sodium perborate etc.

Mercerising

Proces~ for increasing the tensile strength, luster. sheen, dye

affinity and abrasion resistance of cotton goods by
impregnating the fabric with sodium hydroxide solution.

Crahbing

Through hot water are tensions removed at wool fibres.

Desiz.ing

Process for removIng sizing compounds applied to yarns.

Sizing compounds are necessary for controlling of friction and
Textile Finishing 125

electrostatic charging. After solubilization the size is discharged

and the fabric is washed and rinsed.

Dyeing, Printing, Whitening

Dyein/t

Process of colouring cloth as a whole (dyeing) or specific areas

(printing). Any process of coloration is characterised by the
sequential operations of pre-treatment, dyeing and post dyeing.
The process of fixing a dye on the fabric may be realised by
various principles of binding, namely:

covalent (reactive dyes)

electrostatic (add and cationic dyes)
adsorption (disperse dyes)
hydrogen bindings (vat and metal complexes)

Two methods of dying:

Exhaustion mode: Dyestuff preparation is solved in

water and fixed on textile fibre.
Foulard technique: Dyestuff preparation is put on
rolls, press on textile and fixed by means of steam, heat or
chemicals.

Three types of dyeing processes, affecting the waste water

volume can be evaluated:
batch (discontinuous) dyeing
semi-continuous dyeing
continuous dyeing.
126 Textile Printing

Discontinuous dyeing

Discontinuous dyeing (also called batch dyeing) involves

applying a dyestuff in solution or suspension at a specific
liquor ratio which determines the depth of the colour obtained.
(generally from 0.1 to ).0 [gIL]. At the end of the dyeing
operation the spent dye-bath liquor is drained off. The post-
dyeing stage consists of washing with water to remove unfixed
amounts of dyestuff from the textile substrate.

Continuous dyeing

Continuous dyeing is operated at constant compOSItion, i.e. a

long length of textile fabric is pulled through each stage of the
dyeing process. In general these techniques are operating at
high dyestuff concentrations of 10 to 100 [gIL] but do hardly
generate waste water beside equipment clean-up discharges.

Semi-continuous dyeing

Semi-continuous dyeing is characterised by performing dyeing

in a continuous mode but fixation and washing steps are run
discontinuously. Operation concentrations are in a range of 1.0
to 10 [gIL].

Printing

Instead of colouring the whole cloth as in dyeing, print colour

is applied only to specific areas by screen printing systems to
achieve the planned design. Dye fixation is carried out by
steaming or baking followed by washing to remove surplus dye
and thickness. In principle three methods are available:
Textile Finishill[? 127

printing with diffusing dyestuffs (printing - drying -

fixation - washing )
printing with pigment (printing - drying - fixation
transfer printing (transfer paper - print on textile - paper
waste disposal )

Whitening (Optical Brighteners)

Fibres contain normally yellow colouring matters. In order to

get a bright white or reddish or bluish shades optical
brightness, ego fluorescent whitening agents (FW As) are
applied. Fluorescent whitening agents are mainly used in
exhaustion or padding (never-dried technique), the later being
the most important one due to economic advantages. FW As
used in textile can be roughly classified in 3 categories.
anionic compounds which contain sulphuric acid groups.
similar to acid dyes. effective on cotton, wool and
polyamide yarns
cationic and amphoteric compounds and amphoteric with a
similar behaviour as basic dyes, effective mainly on
poly acrylonitrile, cellulose and polyamides
compound without solubilizing groups, similar to dispers
dyes, effective on polyesters, polyamides and cellulose
acetate.

Functional Finishing

Process of finishing operations endowing the fabric with a

particular appearance, surface texture or behaviour
characteristics (flameproofing or -retardancy, water repellent,
stain repellent. antistatic, biocide, stiffening, shape retentive,
wrinkle resistance etc.).
128 Textile Printing

Chemicals for Textile Finishing

The following groups of chemicals are especially important as

process materials for textile finishing: sizes, bleaches, dyes, dye
solvents, carriers, optical whiteners, waterproofing agents,
surfactants and others.

Table I: Sun'ey abollt process lIIaterials

Class o( chemical Example

Auxiliary-finishing products Spinbath additive.
for fibres and yarn spooloel
Preparative chemicals Bleaching assistent
Auxiliary products for dyeing and printing Dyestuff solvent,
dyeing activator
Finishing products Optical brighteners,
water repellent agent
Universal auxiliary products Surfactant,
defoaming agent

Dyestuff

Dyestuff may be categorised in:

acid d:ves anionic dyes with affinity to protein, polyamide
and acrylic-functional groups of substrates. Exhaustion of
the dyebath is normally enhanced as pH is lowered.
cationic dyes cationic salt of a dye base with affinity to
protein fibres and synthetic acrylates
direct dyes anionic or cationic dyes which are substantive
to cellulose fibres.
disperse dyes neutral dyes, which are sparingly soluble in
water and which are applied to polyester, cellulose ester
and polyamide fibres.
Textile Finishing 129

reactive dyes dyes that have the property of forming

covalent bonds with the fibres.
sulphur dyes water insoluble dyes which are normally
applied in the reduced
vat dyes water soluble (Ieuco) form and subsequently de-
oxidised into the insoluble fonn on the textile substrate

Characterisation of Water Consumption

The branch of textile finishing is characterised by many small

and medium-sized enterprises (SMSE) which discharge
predominantly (in Gelmany approximately 90 %) to municipal
sewage treatment plants. Only a few companies treat their
waste water more extensively.
The branch of textile finishing is very heterogeneous and
operates many different processes. Therefore a systematic
characterisation of water circuits is not practicable.
Waste waters are generated from bath dumps, washing
and rinsing waters from removing the caustic and clean up
waters both from the fibres and applicator equipment. Due to
differences in processing equipment and requirements of the
handled orders, type of dye, washing and rinsing procedures,
etc. the waste water volumes per processed unit vary
considerably.
Although the various processes are described separately it is
not uncommon for two or more operations to occur in sequence
in one single bath unit or on a continuous range. The overall
characteristic water consumption during wet processing of
different fields is between 20 to 350 m3/tproduct (average: 120
m3/tproduct ) and is tabulated as follows.
130 Textile Priming

Table 2: Specific waste water consumption by fields

Process Specific waste water

consumption in
rm3/tproduct1
Flake finishing
yarn finishing
- fibres of synthetics 20-160
- fibres of naturals
- mixture
Fahric finishing
stitch finishing 70-230
- pre-treatment, dyeing, upgrade

Printing
- dyeing/printing, upgrade with predominantly
pigment-printing 80-150
- dyeing/printing, upgrade
with few pigment-printing 150-350

New statistical data for wastewater, dilution factors and

production quantities for the textile finishing industry were
obtained and statistically evaluated in a recent research project
"Abwassereinleiter- Statistik" (waste water statistics) of
Umweltbundesamt. A comprehensive questionnaire was sent to
companies in this branch and the data received were used to
examine standard default values so far applied in the EU for
risk assessment process in the aquatic compartment, e.g. the
production volume per day, the flow rate of sewage treatment
plant (EFFLUENTstp) and the dilution factors of receiving
water (DILUTION).
The following calculation factor "CF" was introduced and
is defined as:

Q
CF =
EFFLUENT. DILUTION
Textile Finishing 131

CF mass of product per day/m3 river water per day

[tlm 3 ] or [kg/m 3]
Q daily production volume [tid]
EFFLUENT flow rate of waste water treatment plant [m 3/d]
DILUTION dilution factor effluent to receiving surface
waters [-]

This calculation factor was determined for each production site

(company) separately. All these factors (CF) were then
evaluated statistically to obtained the average, the median and
the 90 percentile. This procedure was seen as the best method
to determine factors that depend on the location and are
independent of the chemical involved. The smaller the
calculation factors is, the lower is the concentration of a
substance in the surface waters.

Calculation of Emission to Waste Water per Day

The key parameters in emission estimation water pollution are

"the mass of dyestuff used per mass of goods" and the "degree
of fixation". The degree of fixation depends on affinity of the
chemical to the fibre, liquor ratio, temperature, time. pH and
chemical additions.

Therefore thorough knowledge about optimum conditions

is necessary to minimise losses to the waste water. The degree
of fixation is taken from the chemical dossier. Using estimates
for parameters such as the constant for type of dye and the
degrees of fixation in dyeing and printing operations are given
in Table 3. Washing processes are included in the degrees of
fixation.
132 Textile Priming

Table 3: Estimated degree of fixation for different types of dyes,

processes and fibres
Type of dye Process' Type of fibre 2 Av. degree Range (%)
of fixation (%)
disperse c CEo PES 95 88 - 99
disperse p 97 91 - 99
direct b C 88 64 - 96
reactive b W 95 90 - 97
reactive b C 70 55 - 80
reactive b general 85 55 - 95
vat c C, 80 70 - 95
vat p 75 70 - 80
sulfur c C 70 60 - 90
sulfur p 70 65 - 95
acid-ISO,- b PAM. PAc 90 85 - 93
group
acid,> I-SO,- b 95o/r 85 - 98
group
basic b PAc,PES,PAM,C 99 96- 100
azoic( naphtol) c 84 76 - 89
aLOic(naphtol) p 87 80 - 91
metalcomplex b 94 82 - 98
pigment c 100
pigment p 100 98 - 100
unknown
/hardly
soluble c 97 85 - 99.5
unknown/
acid groups p 96 84 - 99
I processe~: c = continuous dyeing; p = printing; b = batch dyeing
2 fihres: P = protem: C = colton; W = wool; CE = cellulose. PES = polyester:
PAc= polyarmde; PAc = polyacryl

The local emission of chemical to water during a working day

is calculated as:

ElocaIW'''C' = Q*W*C*(1-F)
where
Elocal waleJ = local emission quantity per day [kg/d]
Textile Finishing 133

Q = mass of good processed per day [tid]

W = mass of dyestuff used per mass of good
(specific or generic with I 0 kg/t)
C = content of chemical in preparation
F = degree of fixation

Functional Textile Finishing Processes

To meet requests for special effects the bleached and/or dyed

textile material is submitted to one or more functional finishes.
These processes may be mechanical procedures (smoothness,
roughness, shining) or chemical treatment (e.g. stiffening.
softening. water and soil repellent, mildew-, rot-, mothproofing,
antistatic finishing, fire retardant finishing). The finishing
substances are used in aqueous solutions and fixed to the
material. Foulard machines with several dipping baths, spraying
or painting techniques as well as exhaustion processes or
lickroll processes are commonly used.

The local emission of chemical to water during a working

day is calculated as:
Elocal WalC' = Q*W*C*( I-R)
where

Elocalw.'1C' = local emission quantity per day [kg/d]

Q= mass of good processed per day
W= mass of substance used per mass of good
(specific) [kg/t]
C= content of chemical in preparation (specific or
default 100 %)
R= fraction removed, fixed or converted during
processing (specific or default 0%)
134 Textile Priming

Environmental Guidelines

The textile dyeing and finishin~ industry has traditionally

generated large volumes of waste and been a large consumer of
energy. As it may take 200 litres of water to produce, dye and
finish one kilogram of finished textile, the industry has a high
demand for water and serious effluent management issues to
address. Textile finishing also requires the input of a wide
range of chemicals which, if not contained in the final product,
become waste treatment and disposal problems. A large
proportion of the environmental issues affecting the industry
are related to the use and discharge of water. Washings from
dyeing and rinsing operations may produce hot, alkaline, highly
saline, odorous and highly coloured effluent. Other
environmental issues requiring consideration are energy,
chemical usage, storm water, solid wastes, emissions to
atmosphere. contaminated land, noise, hazardous materials,
groundwater and other environmental issues particular to the
location of a facility.

Textile dyeing and Processes employed

flnishillg operations
Wool scouring Pretreatment
Wool finishing Dyeing
Dry processing Finishing
Woven fabric finishing Bleaching
Knit fabric finishing Printing
Carpet manufacture Coating
Stock and yarn dyeing and finishing Sizing and desizing

Statutory Requirements

Fundamental principles which guide Victorian Government

policy and legislation on the environment include:
Textile Finishil/g 135

pollution prevention (eg through waste avoidance and risk

reduction)
the precautionary principle (to enable prudent action to be
taken in the absence of complete scientific certainty)
su~tainable development
the "polluter pays" principle.
Current Acts, policies and Regulations administered by EPA are
listed in Appendix 3 References and Information Sources. The
Environment Protection Act 1970 The Environment Protection
Act 1970 provides for the control of water, air and land
pollution, industrial waste and the emission of noise. The Act
is administered by EPA.
Under the Act, discharges of wastes into the environment
must accord with State environment protection policies
(SEPPs), which identify beneficial uses for particular segments
of the environment, and establish ambient objectives and
discharge limits.
The Environment Protection Act 1970 provides for the
formulation and adoption of SEPPs and Industrial Waste
Management Policies (lWMPs) by the Government. SEPPs
provide a framework for environmental protection in Victoria
by identifying "beneficial uses" of the environment to be
protected, environmental objectives appropriate to those uses,
and plans and programs for the attainment of those objectives.
IWMPs define and give effect to strategic plans for the
management of industrial waste, including waste minimisation
initiatives, and the regulation of waste treatment and disposal
facilities. The State Environment Protection Policy (The Air
Environment), (the Air Policy) specifies both emission limits
and acceptable ground level concentrations for pollutants that
may be emitted by industrial and other premises. Emissions
from industrial facilities must comply with the Air Policy.
136 Textile Printing

Table. 1. Some design ground level air emission concentrations

{SEPP (The Air Environment), Schedule Cl
ppm IIlg/m-'
Ammonia 0.8000 0.60000
Acetic acid 0.0420 0.50000
Cotton dust (raw) 0.00670
Hydrogen chloride 0.2000 0.20000
Hydrogen sulphide 0.0001 0.00014
Odour I odour unit

Similarly, the State Environment Protection Policy (Waters of

Victoria) and other SEPPs related to surface waters prescribe
quality limits for wastewaters discharged to various receiving
environments and water quality objectives for those water
bodies.
Requirements for wastewaters vary for different water
bodies, where different beneficial uses may apply. These may
be defined in SEPPs for different catchments-for example,
Waters of the Yarra River and Tributaries (SEPP No W-29)
and The Waters of Far East Gippsland (SEPP No W-21).
Some industries are undertaking direct application of
wastewater to land for irrigation under EPA licence conditions.
This accords with SEPPs for surface waters, which require that
wastewater be directed to sustainable land disposal instead of
being discharged to surface waters, wherever this is achievable.
Many wastewater discharges are to reticulated sewerage
systems operated by water authorities or water businesses-in
which case the discharge requirements are usually governed by
the operator of the sewerage system and are not subject to
direct EPA controls. The State Environment Protection Policy
(Control of Noise from Commerce. Industry and Trade) No. N-
J 1989, specifies permissible noise limits in noise sensitive
areas-such as residential buildings, hospitals and motels.
Textile Finishing 137

The acceptable noise levels which are specified are

related to the type of development in the surrounding area.
Noise limits are set by adjusting background noise levels for
day, evening and night conditions. If adequate buffer distances
have been provided and maintained, noise requirements can
more easily be met.
The Industrial Waste Management Policy (Waste
Minimisation) 1980 (Waste Minimisation Policy) specifies
objectives for minimising industrial waste through avoidance
and reduction, in preference to recycling and reclamation.
Thus, this policy shifts the emphasis from regulatory
approaches and "end of pipe" pollution control to "cradle-to-
grave" controls. The Industrial Waste Strategy established
systems and controls for hazardous wastes, as well as fostering
industry agreements for waste reduction and industry codes of
practice. Among other things, the Waste Minimisation Policy
requires all new development subject to works approval under
the Act to develop a waste management plan, with emphasis on
waste minimisation. Some processes generate wastes with a
high potential to cause environmental harm. These "priority
wastes" have to be specially managed and treated to minimise
the risk of pollution. All new premises and modifications to
existing processes generating "priority wastes" are required to
use best available technology.
The Environment Protection (Scheduled Premises and
Exemptions) Regulations 1996 describe premises which are
scheduled, and thus required to comply with the licensing and
works approval provisions of the Environment Protection Act
1970. Specific discharges which are exempt from the licensing
provisions are also listed. Textile dyeing and finishing works
are scheduled, and hence subject to works approval and
licensing. This classification includes plants carrying out
carpet manufacturing, wool scouring, and textile bleaching,
138 Textile Printing

dyeing and finishing. However, sites which do not carry out

both dyeing and finishing are exempt from licensing for
discharges to air, although they still require works approval for
the installation of new plant or modifications to existing plant.
As well as being required for the installation of new plant,
works approval must precede alterations to existing scheduled
premises, which will increase or change waste discharges.
Works approval is also needed to relocate plant or waste
discharge points.
The Environment Protection (Prescribed Waste)
Regulations 1998 classify certain industrial and domestic
wastes as prescribed waste. Prescribed waste can only be
removed from a site by an approved waste transporter. Some
of the solid wastes generated by the dyeing and finishing
industry are prescribed. The Environment Protection
(Prescribed Waste) Regulations 1998 also contain details of the
transport certificate system for the movement of prescribed
industrial waste and define the responsibilities of the waste
producer, accredited agent, waste transporter and waste
processor.

Waste Minimisation

Waste minimisation is an important part of BPEM. By

focussing on waste avoidance and reduction through use of
cleaner production processes and practices, pollution control
and waste disposal costs can be lowered. Preference should be
given to waste avoidance or reduction, ahead of recycling and
reuse. If these type of actions are not possible then, and only
then, should treatment be considered, followed by the least
preferred alternative of waste disposal. Waste minimisation
includes good housekeeping practices and changes to staff
attitudes, as well as technical factors. Improvements as simple
Textile Finishing 139

as ensuring water is turned off when equipment is not working

or arranging production to minimise the amount of cleaning
required may collectively add up to significant gains. The
potential impact of such non-technological or "low-tech"
measures should not be underestimated. Some of the smaller
incremental improvements are easy to gain. but difficult to
maintain. Teamwork and commitment from production staff,
supported by strong management and effective management
systems, should enable sustainable and continuous performance
improvement. Another essential part of waste minimisation is
understanding what wastes are being produced and the
processes which generate them. As well as establishing a
baseline against which improvements can be assessed, this data
will allow waste reduction options to be evaluated.
A useful approach to waste minimisation involves the
preparation of a Waste Management Plan (WMP) The statting
point for a WMP is a waste audit. This should:

identify all gaseous, liquid and solid waste streams

quantify and characterise the waste streams
establish the methods of waste stream generation.

Having done the waste audit, a waste assessment is then carried

out. This involves an investigation of production processes and
raw material purchases, and an assessment of all waste streams.
A technical and economic feasibility analysis is then conducted
to determine which waste minimisation opportunities identified
should be adopted. The WMP contains an implementation
timetable and a description of the method of implementation,
the anticipated cost and environmental benefits.
The waste minimisation program should not be a one-off
activity, but should be periodically reviewed to ensure that the
WMP is being adhered to, and to identify any new waste
140 Textile Prillting

mInimisation opportunities. The waste minimisation program

should also be an integral part of the company's approach to
environmental management.

Environmental Elements

Environmental elements relating to the industry are set out in

the following sections. One of the main potential impacts of
this industry is on water quality. Air quality, site selection,
noise impacts and other important issues are also addressed.
Environmental factors are one of the most important
considerations in siting a new facility or upgrading an existing
plant. Careful site selection can reduce the risk of
environmental problems during the operational life of the plant.
Important environmental factors to be considered in siting
textile plants are:
proximity to residential areas (buffer distance
requirements)
future land lise
site hydrology
weather and prevailing wind conditions III relation to
sensitive land lIses
geology and ground permeability
site contamination
proposed nature of wastes and treatment systems
water supply and availability of waste-water treatment and
disposal facilities presence of incompatible industrial
neighbours.

These issues should be considered at greenfield sites and when

r~locating or modifying existing plant. Requirements for
Textile Finishing 141

planning new industrial developments are prescribed under the

Planning and Environment Act 1987. Planning approval may be
required for the establishment of a textile plant.
In order to provide a basic level of protection from odour,
dust and noise, a textile dyeing and finishing plant should not
be located inappropriately with regard to designated residential
areas or other sensitive land uses. This is to protect the
amenity of the area by anticipating possible unintended or
accidental emissions that may occasionally arise from causes
such as equipment failure. accidents and abnormal weather
conditions. The buffer distance is usually measured from the
nearest textile activity capable of emitting odour. Buffer
distances should not be regarded as an alternative to good
source control. Air modelling studies may be necessary at the
design stage for large operations to assist in assessing the
possible risk of adverse impact on local amenity. Siting should
also take into account the need to protect sensitive natural
water resources. Thus a textile plant should not be sited within
100 metres of surface waters, nor be located on a flood plain or
in declared special water supply catchment areas. unless
adequate protection of surface and groundwaters can be
demonstrated by the proponent.
Buffer distances between textile plant processing
operations and sensitive areas should be determined with
reference to Recommended Buffer Distances for Residual Air
Emissions. Where a new or modified facility is proposed within
a recommended buffer, a risk assessment should be carried out
to assess the potential for adverse effects on sensitive uses. If a
risk assessment shows unacceptable risks, alternative siting or
technology need to be considered. Buffer aistances usually are
considered for new or green field sites or for additional work
on existing sites. If there is to be substantial development on
existing sites with potentially inadequate buffers. the site
developers usually need to show that the introduced technology
142 Textile Printing

will reduce any risk of adverse impacts. A buffer may be

occupied by compatible non-sensitive land uses. Buffer zones
can also be provided within a site by wise use of available
land. Some typical buffer distances for textile industries taken
from Recommended Buffer Distances for Residual Air
Emissions are provided below.

Air Quality

The main emissions to atmosphere from textile dyeing and

finishing processes are odours and particles. These emissions
arise from drying, bleaching, heat setting, stentering and other
finishing processes. Their control represents a major challenge
to the industry. The SEPP (The Air Environment) contains
specific requirements for stationary sources and specifies
emission limits for various pollutants. The policy identifies
the following matters as being relevant:

compliance with policy would increase or create waste

Jisposal problems
compliance would preclude the use of energy saving
technology or innovative controls
compliance cannot be achieved by using reasonably
available technology
maximum ground level concentrations will not be exceeded
and the discharge witl not adversely affect any beneficial
use of the environment.

In accordance with the SEPP, EPA licences impose specific

requirements for emission controls for a production facility.
Emissions can often be estimated from a knowledge of products
used and volatiles likely to be emitted, but usually need to be
determined by testing. Ground level concentrations can then be
Te.Ttite Finishing 143

determined at the peak operating conditions through the use of

plume dispersion modelling.
BPEM involves investigation of these emissions.
identification of ways to avoid or minimise them, and
formulation of controls on residual emissions to reduce any
negative impacts on the environment. This process should
consider emissions during both normal and abnormal operating
conditions-suc~ as plant and process start-up. commissioning
of new plant, power and equipment failure, and fires.
The introduction of new products such as dye carriers and
lubricating and finishing oils should be preceded by screening
for their potential to generate odour and smoke emissions
Waste minimisation Waste minimisation is an integral PaIt of
BPEM. Each facility should initially investigate opportunities
for waste reduction through process, material or product
changes which may result in elimination of emissions or
reductions in their quantities or toxicity.
For example, emissions will be minimised for a particular
heat setting or stentering process if the coating used on the
fibre is applied at the optimal level. Non-optimal coating layers
will result in correspondingly greater emissions and the facility
will lose money in wasted inputs as well as the increased
requirement to treat wastes.
In recent years, the use of toxic moth proofing agents that
do not biodegrade readily-such as pentachlorophenol-by the
textile finishing industry has ceased. Alternatives to
formaldehyde based resins are also available to reduce the
environmental risk of this biocide. Quantification of the
processes which generate emissions will lead to better
understanding of waste generation and hopefully the
identification of both simple and more complex opportunities to
reduce emissions.
144 Textile Printing

Drying Operations

There are several different technologies available to textile

finishing facilities for drying. Each of the drying processes-
mechanical drying, steam heating, hot air, or RF drying
systems-should be examined from the point of environmental
outcomes as well as efficiencies, energy consumption and cost.
Monitoring intermediate and final product moisture levels and
using this information to optimise drying processes is sound
practice.
Stenters may be major emission sources of particle
emissions. As well as applying waste minimisation practices-
such as using optimum coating levels and applying less volatile
coatings-the following steps should be considered:

examining opportunities to use less volatile finishes, less

toxic and odorous chemicals in dyeing
turning off power to machine when not in use
optimising oven performance (measure it first)
splitting the oven exhaust wastes and recycling the clean
streams (most of the volatiles are emitted in the first oven)
wmming up incoming gases using heat exchange with out-
going hot emissions
.using moisture meters to minimise the amount of exhaust
gases required for the process by motor control
using a mist eliminator to reduce particle emissions.

Control systems

Emissions of waste gases can be controlled using stack gas

treatment systems.
Textile Finishing 145

The following emission control systems should be

investigated as part of BPEM:
diversion of stack emissions to neutralise alkaline effluent
(C0 2 to COJ_H 2CO)
diversion of stack emissions through the boiler, to reduce
VOC and odour emissions
cooling and filtration (heat recovery (possible)
gas scrubbing (water pollution and operating cost high)
electrostatic filtering (removal of particles requires
energy).
The applicability of the above approaches will depend on
individual circumstances.
Some of these systems are very efficient in contaminant
removal, but do not necessarily eliminate wastes. For example,
stack gas scrubbing to remove volatile organic components
does not destroy these contaminants, but condenses them into a
liquid. This has to be discharged as effluent or as a sludge
requiring specialised disposal. This reinforces the desirability
of waste minimisation. It is possible to save energy by using
hot emissions to heat up incoming gases. For instance, exhaust
gases from an afterburner could be used to preheat incoming
waste stenter gases.

Water Quality

The most difficult environmental issue for the textile dyeing

and finishing industry is the generation of wastewaters.
Effluent quality limits can be difficult for companies to meet
amd are likely to become more stringent, requiring textile
dyeing and finishing operations to employ waste minimisation,
to avoid resorting to expensive on-site treatment.
146 Textile Printing

Environmental issues associated with textile industry

effluents include:
residual dyestuffs-toxicity, colour, biodegradability
halogenated organic compounds (AOXs)
heavy metal contamination (Cr, Cu, Zn)
surfactants and synergistic relationship with toxicants
salts in effluent which is to be reused for land application
auxiliary agents for dyeing-toxicity and biodegradability
finishes-toxicity and biodegradability
elevated temperatures
high levels of total oxidised sulphur (TOS)
high BOD levels.
The first priority for wastewater management IS the
implementation of waste avoidance and reduction. Where
reticulated sewer is available, wastewater should be directed to
the sewer, with the approval of the system's operator.
Pretreatment may be required. Where sewer is unavailable, the
preferred method of managing wastewater is to use it for land
irrigation, in aC(i:ordance with the SEPP (Waters of Victoria).
Irrigation schemes should be designed in accordance with
Guidelines for Wastewater Irrigation, to be sustainable and
avoid contaminating land or groundwater.
Disposal to surface waters should only be considered if a
combination of waste minimisation, recycling and land
irrigation cannot avoid a wastewater discharge to surface water.
If discharge to surface waters is being considered, the
requirements of the relevant SEPPs must be observed. Key
parameters for policy compliance include toxicity, colour and
total dissolved solids (TDS). Discharges should not display
acute or chronic toxicity; discharges should not cause
Textile Finishing 147

objectionable colours in receiving waters; and TDS levels in

receiving waters should not be increased unacceptably. To
ensure policy compliance, wastewater quality should be
comparable with that of the receiving waters. This would be
likely to require a treatment regime combining processes such
as sedimentation, chemical dosing, dissolved air flotation,
biological oxidation and filtration. The capital and operating
costs of such complex treatment processes may be significant.
These processes also generate sludge, which requires an
environmentally sound disposal route. An assessment of
potential TDS impacts would have to consider the
characteristic high TDS levels of textile industry wastewater
and the large natural TDS variation in Victorian waters (from
tens of mglL to thousands of mglL). Thus, such an assessment
should be site-specific and may have to consider treatment
processes such as reverse osmosis.
A good starting point is to ensure that formulations do not
use excessive amounts of chemicals or water. This may involve
a program of trials and monitoring. Once the optimum
formulations have been determined, operating procedures
should be put in place to ensure they are adhered to. A number
of Victorian plants have successfully used this approach.
When assessing options to minimise wastewater streams,
consider the following methods:
minimise machine cleaning through better maintenance and
production planning
optimise production to reduce liquor ratios
optimise and reduce the number of rinses
optimise cycle times and job tum-around
use lower liquor ratio machinery
reduce reprocessing through better quality controls
148 Textile Printing

combine rinses with scours

scours may be done in dyebath
recycle steam condensate back to boilers
recycle cooling waste to use as hot! mixed hot-cold fill
recycle rinses as feeds for dyebaths and scour baths
recycle 'clean rinses'.

A key factor in water usage in dyeing, scouring, bleaching and

other textile finishing processes is the "liquor ratio"-the volume
of liquor required in the process per kilogram of fibre. Dyeing
plants have been developed which operates with progressively
lower liquor ratios to reduce water usage. Care should be taken
to investigate the overall environmental impact of some of these
processes before a decision is made to adopt them.
Exhaust dyeing can achieve high levels of dye fixation to
the fibre and may produce significantly lower levels of dye
waste. Simple effluent volume reduction may result in reduced
effluent disposal charges, but the effect of volume reduction
may simply be to concentrate contaminants. This could require
contaminant minimisation or treatment to meet trade waste
acceptance standards or to reduce environmental impacts in
cases of discharges to surface waters.

Dyebaths

Dyebaths generally have high levels of BOD/COD, colour,

toxicity, surfactants, fibres and turbidity, and may contain
heavy metals. They generally constitute a small fraction of
total liquid effluent volumes, but may contribute a high
proportion of total contaminants. Dyes naturally tend to
generate highly visible colour problems. The reduction of
Textile Finishil/g 149

colour in the spent dyebaths will help reduce the final effluent
colour. Methods to reduce dyebath contamination levels
include:
choose biodegradable surfactants
reduce salt usage in dyebaths-high levels of salts make
reuse of the spent liquors difficult and expensive
ensure dye fixing is maximised
recycle light shade dyebaths into darker shades
flocculate or otherwise remove dyes from dyebaths before
dropping them to effluent, or for recycling.
Both dyes and application technologies are being cOJlltinually
improved. Each facility should balance the cost of dyes and
processes against the environmental cost of cheap materials and
wasteful processes. In particular, plant management should
examtne:
use of low salt dyes
dye toxicity and carcinogenicity, and heavy metal content
pad batch, spray and other low volume appl ication
techniques
use of CO 2 for neutralisation instead of mineral acids
use of low temperature dyeing techniques
use of dyes with high levels of exhamtion
use of dyes that fix well onto the fibre and require less
rinsing
replacement of reactive dyes with direct dyes
especially with heavier shades-to save water in fixing and
washing off (soaping and rinsing)
150 Textile Prillting

improving repeatability of shades-hence reducing the

need to correct shades-by maintaining more accurate
records and better dye deliver systems.
Technologies are available to purify almost any waste stream
from a textile facility. However, the cost of many of the
treatment options makes waste reduction an attractive alternative.
The following techniques may be used individually or in
combination:
electrolysis
adsorption (should be reversible)
ultra-filtration, and reverse osmosis
activated sludge digestion
dissolved air flotation
bacterial treatment (aerobic and anaerobic)
ozone treatment
oxidationlreduction (may lead to more pollution)
flocculation-alum and ferric (again may lead to more
pollution).
The removal of dyes and other contaminants may simply
transfer the waste problem from one phase to another. Many of
these treatments will end up with a toxic byproduct that may
have to be disposed of at a secure landfill. The BPEM solution
to the problem of residual dyes and auxiliaries in effluent is to
maximise the fixation of the dyes on the fibre and to consider
recycling the spent dyebath, after treatment if necessary.
Salts are an important issue for the textile dyeing
industry. Common salts are required in a number of dyeing
systems-particularly for cotton dyeing where reactive dyes are
used. The low value of salts makes them a poor target for
Textile Finishi/lg 151

recovery and the small nature of the ions compns1l1g salts

makes them difficult to remove by standard eftluent treatment
methods. They are not removed by biological treatments and
require physical or chemical separation techniques (reverse
osmosis, evaporation, electrolysis). Salts may affect the
application of eftluent to land for irrigation purposes. It may be
possible to examine the use of different salts, which improve
effluent sodium adsorption ratio (SAR) and hence improve
reuse options. BPEM is to use low salt dyeing techniques and
to examine opportunities for dyebath recycling.
Finishing can lead to high levels of pollutants inwastes.
The moth proofing agents most commonly used- pyrethrins-
have a high degree of insecttoxicity. If this material is over
applied, does notadhere well to the fibre, or washes off in post-
treatments,the resulting wastes can be highlycontaminated with
pyrethrins. Heavy metals in finishing treatments and other
contaminants such as fluorides used for flame-proofing can also
lead to contamination of wastewater that is difficult to treat.
Finishing treatments should also be examined in terms of the
end use of the products. The "cradle-to-grave" approach to
environmental management will include consideration of the
recyclability or reusability of the textiles after the product~
have finished their natural life. If a product is likely to be
incinerated there may be environmental problems if it contains
heavy metals or resins that may break down to form toxic
gases.
Once options for material substitution have been
examined, the neXt step to reduce contamination of the effluent
from finishing materials is to monitor and improve the level of
fixation to the fibre. If these options are exhausted it may be
possible to separate and treat these waste streams before they
are discharged.
152 Textile Printing

Chemical and Waste Storage

Although it is necessary to store chemicals and wastes at textile

industry sites, this inevitably creates an environmental risk.
Spills can severely pollute land, surface waters and
groundwater. A spill of even a low toxicity, biodegradable
material to a waterway can lead to s.evere oxygen depletion and
the death of aquatic life. Although spillage may be accidental,
the responsible organisation may be liable for any
environmental damage which occurs. Staff training is
particularly important, as many spills are the result of human
error. Management must ensure that staff are trained and
prepared to prevent spills and know how to take corrective
action to contain split material or prevent its release into the
environment. This type of training must be continuous. Staff
must have access to adequate information about the nature of
materials used in the work place. the hazards associated with
their use and safe handling and spill control measures. A
comprehensive and up to date set of material safety data sheets
mu~t be available, along with emergency procedure guides and
safe handling notices in storage areas.
Clearly, a program to reduce the environmental risks
associated With spills should be carried out. It should include
the following elements.
Firstly. audit current chemical and waste storage facilities,
and identify potential risks. Implement a program to reduce
risb, ba~ed on the results of the audit. The program should
c()n~ider:

reducing inventories
replacing below ground with above ground tanks
replacing hazardous materials with less hazardous/non-
hazardous materials
Textile Finishing 153

using automatic dispensing systems

bunding.
Provide contingency plans to deal with any spill~ which occur.
Plans should consider issues such as:
isolating and recovering spilled materials before they enter
the environment or sewerage systems
containing and cleaning up spills which have entered
waterways

disposal or reuse of recovered residues

contacting key company and government agency personnel
to advise them of the emergency.

Solid wastes do not generally present major environmental

problems in textile dyeing and finishing. Most of the solid
waste is generated by salt bags, dyestuff and chemical
containers and packaging. Other solid waste includes waste
fibre and sludges from water purification and effluent treatment
facilities.
Waste fibre can be recycled as a feedstock for other
operations, including:
cleaning
dye adsorption
boiler feed
external llses
quilting
fibre pilling
insulation
geotexti les
low grade products
154 Textile Priming

respinning and weaving

non-wovens.
Chemical containers present a disposal problem, even when
empty. A number of regulations apply to reuse and transport of
empty chemical containers. Production facilities should
investigate bulk chemical delivery rather than supply in small
containers to avoid disposal problems.
Solid wastes from a dyehouse and finishing plant have
traditionally gone directly to municipal tips. Under the
Environment Protection Act 1970 the waste generator has a
responsibility to ensure that wastes are properly disposed of.
Some solid wastes generated by the textile finishing and dyeing
industry are classified as prescribed wastes and must be
transported in accordance with the Environment Protection
(Prescribed Waste) Regulations 1998 to a suitably licensed
landfill. These include:
boiler blowdown sludge
filter cake sludges and residues
dyes
chromium compounds
oxidising and reducing agent~

peroxides
surfactants
pesticides.

Noise

Noise coming from a textile production plant may have a

significant impact on the local environment. Textile plants in
Textile Finishing 155

the Melbourne metropolitan area must comply with the State

Environment Protection Policy. Impacts are greater where. as is
the case for many sites. textile plants are close to residential
areas. Because of the high potential for noise to affect amenity.
management should give high priority to liaising with the local
community so that it can be aware of. and effectively resolve.
noise issues. Potential noise impacts should be considered at
greenfield sites and when existing plant is being modified or
relocated. Noise abatement can often be achieved by simple
non-technical measures such as closing: doors and -;\1utter
windows. controlling delivery hours and restricllllg fork lift
movement on open roads. Telephones and loudspeakers can
affect reSidential areas and should be considered. Simple
measures such as ensuring loudspeakers are directed away from
residential areas may be effective. Where noise abatement
requires more detailed analysis and control, an acoustic
consultant should be used.

Energy efficiency and waste mlllimisation are often

closely linked. Measures that avoid or reduce wastes often save
energy and vice versa. Many of the energy savings that may
be made 111 any facility relate to staff awareness of the need to
conserve energy and their attention to small measures that can
collectively make a big difference. Heating and lighting energy
requirements can be reduced through sensible conservatioll
measures. Textile dyeing and finishing facilities use significant
quantities of energy for steam. power for motors. direct heat for
drying. air compressors. air conditioning and cooling. Each
facility should conSider and quantify the energy usage of its
proces~es and its overall energy costs.

The main opportunities for energy savings will reside in

the largest energy-using processes and products. Deri vation of
energy consumption benchmarks (for example. U/kg 01'
production) is a good starting point if the various production
processes can be so characterised. Comparisons
;.
of the energy
156 Textile Printing

costs of drying methods usually present good opportunities for

energy and cost savings. Steam, gas and RF drying
comparisons have shown that it is important to look at the
efficiency of heat production and then the efficiency with
which this heat is transferred to the fibre. Options to reduce
energy consumption which should be considered arc outlined
below.

Heat recovery

Recover cooling water and use it as heated input water.

Return steam condensate to boilers.

Reuse different process waters.

Examine the efficiencies of existing heat exchangers.

Look for opportunities to dclamp by better use of natural light,

upgrading lamp effIciencies. or adjusting areas which are
overly bright.

Use of motion sen~or switches (smart lighting).

Use of daylight compensation dimmer~.

Compressed air

Reduce operating pressure where possible.

ElIminate all leaks--even small leaks can be costly.

Shut down compressors on main air lines during idle

periods.

Size the compressors to the application.

Size main lines correctly.

Operation of stenters/drying chambers

Do not over dry (temperature and time).

U~e heat exchangers between inlet and outlet air.

Tcxtl/c Fini,lhing 157

Aim for a maximum exhaust moisture of 150 g/kg when

dry ing (less ai r = less energy).

Use auto pilots.

Investigate low pick-up techniques and technologies.

Minimise energy use during stand-by periods.

The saving of energy requires a monitoring program, the setting

of goals and targets, and concrete plans to implement changes.
A review of program outcomes and the accounting of energy
consumption to individual processes and pi oducts is important
for making decisions on the energy and environmental costs of
products and processes. Any reduction in energy usage has the
additional benefit of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, as well
as reducing operating costs.

EPA encourages the responsible self-management of

environmental issues by industry through environmental
management plans and environmental management systems
(EMSs). EPA's ability to recognise good environmental
management has been enhanced through the introduction of the
accredited licensee system. These initiatives should be
incorporated in the BPEM program.

Environmental Management

With commitment from management and staff, a company can

gain continuing advances in environmental performance
through the implementation of an EMS. Establishment of an
EMS within a company enables the integration of
environmental policies and programs into management policy
and hmllless operations. The EMS includes:

the adoption of environmental policies and objectives

the formulation of environmental plans and programs

15X Textile Priming

the setting of performance targets

the estahlishment of a system of regular monitoring and

review of environmental performance.

A key feature is that it involves personnel at all levels of the

organisation in the achievement of environmental object~ves. An
EMS is a highly desirable component of the total management
program for a textile dyeing and finishing operation.
Environmental management needs to be pro-active and deal with
the full range of environmental issues-both routine and
unexpected. Reducing wastewater loads needs as much attention
as controlling chemical spills. Environmental management is an
ongoing proces~, not a one-off exercise or a single management
plan. A fundamental principle of EMS is continuous
improvement. An EMS itself does not guarantee that all of a
company's environmental problems will be solved promptly and
efficiently. However, it provides a framework within which the
organisation's skills and resources can be used effectively in
tackling the opportunities for environmental improvement,
stal1111g with the highest priority programmes-those that involve
compliance and issues of due diligence for management and
those that can make a significant positive impact on environment
and economic performance.

The EMS should not exist as an independent element 111 a

management program. It should be integrated with other
management structures--such as those for production.
planning, quality management, and occupational health and
safety. An integrated approach will yield the maximum benefib
because the fundamental elements of these management
systems are related and incorporate commitment, policy, targets
and program~, monitoring, and review to achieve continuous
improvement.