Isolation of Microfibers in the Processing of Polyamide Fabrics

In recent years, the problem of the release of polymer microparticles (the so-called microplastics) from textile products has been extensively investigated. The main reason of the release of a large number of plastic microfibers is considered to be machine washing of synthetic clothing. However, approaches aimed at reducing the amounts of detached microfibers (MFs) differ significantly. This paper reviews the existing approaches, presents a method for processing polyamide fabrics with a chitosan solution, and describes the experiments that confirm the feasibility of the proposed method. The formation of a chitosan film on the surface of polyamide fibers was evidenced with the results of scanning electron microscopy. The authors have shown that fabric surface treatment with a 1 % chitosan solution reduces the amount of microfibers released during washing by  60 %. A fluorescent analysis demonstrated that mechanical processing of polyamide fabrics with a higher surface density is associated with a release of a smaller number of microfibers (358 ± 24) MF/g as compared to less dense fabrics (533 ± 16) MF/g. The results obtained in the present study can be used in the development of a standard method for quantifying the amount of synthetic microfibers shed from textile materials during their washing.