In recent years, the interest in reusing recycled fibers as building materials has been growing as a consequence of their ability to reduce the production of waste and the use of virgin resources, taking advantage of the potential that fibrous materials may offer to improve thermal and acoustic comfort. Composite panels, made of 100% wool waste fibers and bound by means of either a chitosan solution and a gum Arabic solution, were tested and characterized in terms of acoustic and non-acoustic properties. Samples with a 5 cm thickness and different density values were made to investigate the influence of flow resistivity on the final performance. Experimental results demonstrated that the samples had thermal conductivity ranging between 0.049 and 0.060 W/(m K), well comparable to conventional building materials. Similarly, acoustic results were very promising, showing absorption coefficients that, for the given thickness, were generally higher than 0.5 from 500 Hz on, and higher than 0.9 from 1 kHz on. Finally, the effects of the non-acoustic properties and of the air gap behind the samples on the acoustic behavior were also analyzed, proving that the agreement with absorption values predicted by empirical models was also very good.

Wastewater recovery is one of the most pressing contaminant-related subjects in the textile industry. Many cleaning and recovery techniques have been applied in recent decades, from physical separation to chemical separation. This work reviews textile wastewater recovery by focusing on natural or synthetic nanoclays in order to compare their capabilities. Presently, a wide variety of nanoclays are available that can adsorb substances dissolved in water. This review summarizes and describes nanoclay modifications for different structures (laminar, tubular, etc.) to compare adsorption performance under the best conditions. This adsorbent capacity can be used in contaminant industries to recover water that can be used and be recontaminated during a second use to close the production circle. It explores and proposes future perspectives for the nanoclay hybrid compounds generated after certain cleaning steps. This is a critical review of works that have studied adsorption or desorption procedures for different nanoclay structures. Finally, it makes a future application proposal by taking into account the summarized pros and cons of each nanoclay. This work addresses contaminant reuse, where part of the employed dyes can be reused in printing or even dyeing processes, depending on the fixing capacity of the dye in the nanoclay, which is herein discussed.

Nature, including the oceans, is polluted by the presence of plastics. Different products can be found, including plastic bottles, toys, toothpaste tubes, fruit meshes, etc. Small pieces of plastics, known as microplastics, have been found in the oceans and there is concern that their impact is increasing. Some of those microplastics are considered to come from the textile products. In this article, the authors will suggest how to minimize the environmental problem of the presence of microplastics in wastewaters from textile laundries. The aim of this study is to determine the influence of some parameters related to the design of fabrics. A relationship between microplastic release and parameters from weave design will be established. A fiberglass filter was used to analyze water from the laundry. Results demonstrated that the interlacing coefficient influences the number of particles in the wastewaters. Moreover, it was demonstrated that the higher the density of yarns/cm in the fabric, the lower the quantity of fibers could be found in the wastewater. Results demonstrated that the presence of weave patterns, such as a plain pattern, work better from the sustainability point of view than a twill. The interlacing coefficient and the weft density are important to prevent the microplastic release.

Microencapsulated products are very common in some fields, such as pharmacy, and the textile industry has recently incorporated them into their products. First, this research assessed the presence of fragrance microcapsules on cotton fabric using different padding applications and evaluated them using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). When the OH stretching region between 3700—3000 cm^{— 1} from spectra was examined, we proposed some area ratios to quantify the microcapsules' presence on the fabric. The ratios proposed showed that when the concentration of microcapsules in the padding bath increased, their value increased too. Secondly, we analyzed the effect that thermal treatment can cause on microcapsules. This was undertaken using hot air at 120 °C, 140 °C and 160 °C, or by ironing the fabric impregnated with microcapsules at 110 °C, 150 °C and 200 °C, by ironing 1, 5 and 10 times on the analyzed zone. It was found that when the temperature was higher than 120 °C, microcapsules were deflated and damaged. This could be seen using SEM images and checked using FTIR analysis.