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Employment of Waste from the Textile Industry for the Production of Nanocomposites Aiming at the Generation of Thermal Shrinkable Films and the Non-Formation of Microplastics
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Researchers used recycled textile waste to create nanocomposite materials for making heat-shrinkable films, aiming to reduce microplastic generation compared to conventional plastic films. The approach repurposes discarded clothing into functional materials, addressing both textile waste and the microplastic pollution from degrading synthetic fabrics.
With the increase of incorrectly discarded materials in the environment, including clothes, the need for recycling and reusing them becomes one of the alternatives to work around this problem, following the law of the 3 Rs. However, these polymeric materials which are deposited in the marine environment and land generate microplastics, due to their degradation/fragmentation due to the action of the weather, in these regions, including being carried by the air and transported from various regions. With the aim of reducing the impact of this inappropriate disposal and obtaining a material that does not generate microplastics, this study used waste from the textile industry, which would be unusable, and a biodegradable polymer. The tissue residues were submitted to acid hydrolysis with sulfuric acid, in order to weaken the interactions between the cellulose fibrils and promote a better dispersion of the latter when processed with the polymer, during the extrusion process, generating biodegradable polymeric nanocomposites. The results showed that the samples submitted to acid hydrolysis presented a higher degree of crystallinity and a greater number of interactions and lower mobility of hydrogen atoms. In addition, the samples treated for a longer time showed a small release of fibrils, suggesting that this treatment can help in the production of nanocomposites during their extrusion.
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