Page 82 - Materials Chemistry, Second Edition

Ch002-P373623.qxd 3/22/07 5:27 PM Page 63
Process description Cleaner Production 63
There are six main processing departments within the factory:

• Weaving: Wrap yarns are wound, starch sized, dried, and woven with
the weft yarns.
• Cone pre-treatment and dyeing: Cone yarns are half or full bleached,
dyed with vat, reactive or naphthol dyes, soaped, and then softened in
Thies Kires unit.
• Fabric bleaching: Continuous pre-treatment is carried out either in
Brugman or Gaston County bleaching ranges (rope form for pure
cotton), or in the Kyoto range (open width for blends), while semi-
continuous pre-treatment is carried out in the Bennenger range (open
width for bed sheets). Mercerization is carried out using either
Bennenger or Textima ranges.
• Fabric dyeing and printing: Dyeing is performed by exhaustion or by
padding. Naphthol dyeing is also carried out. Printing is conducted
using reactive or pigment dyes; the fabric is printed with the print-
ing paste, dried, and thermo-fixed.
• Fabric finishing: Performed on Artos stenters, usually as normal,
resin, or silicon-elastomer finishing.
• Fabric packaging: Fabrics are cut, rolled, or folded, then covered and
packaged.
Service units
Factory service units include boilers, cooling towers, a caustic recovery plant,
water and wastewater treatment plants, laboratories, storage, and maintenance
facilities.
Energy consumption
There are two main sources of energy: electricity and different types of fuel,
such as heavy oil, diesel, natural gas, and Naphtha.

Water consumption
3
The factory uses 1.9 million m /y of water.
Wastewater generation
3
The factory generates around 1.5 million m /y of industrial wastewater from
different factory departments. This is disposed of to the public sewerage net-
work, normally in compliance with the legislative discharge according to
local environmental regulations.

CP opportunity assessment
Considering cleaner production opportunities that were identified as a result
of the industrial audit, the following are the various improvement areas:
• Dyestuffs are stored with the lids unsecured, such that hydrolysis
sets in and shelf life is reduced.