MIDWOR-LIFE COMPLETES THE INDUSTRIAL DEMONSTRATION TESTS

On April 17^th, a major milestone of the MIDWOR-LIFE project was achieved with the last industrial demonstration of alternative DWORs at Nanomembrane manufacturing plant in Czech Republic.

A total of six textile manufacturers have collaborated with the MIDWOR-LIFE project on the industrial validation of safer and environmental friendlier DWOR products: Hidrocolor and E.CIMA from  Spain, Nanomembrane and Innotex from Czech Republic and Biella Manifatture Tessili and Tintoria Finissaggio 2000 from Italy.

During the industrial-scale application of the selected DWORs onto the fabrics by several finishing companies, MIDWOR-LIFE consortium has collected the data for technical performance, environmental analysis, risk and Life Cycle assessments for the resulting treated fabrics.

As a result, the MIDWOR-LIFE project has just published a report on the technical comparison between the conventional and alternative DWORs: “Report on the industrial applications and characterization of DWOR and alternatives”.

A major outcome is that fluorine-free alternatives can match durable water repellency performance of conventional products. However, durable oil repellency is only achieved by fluorinated substances.

During coming weeks, the data gathered from the industrial demonstration will be analyzed to assess the impact on the environment and the risk assessment. The validation will include a benchmark of alternative DWOR against current products to provide strong evidence of their safer and environmentally friendlier assessments.

The technical results, environment impact and risk assessment will be presented on the MIDWOR-LIFE final event titled: “ADVANCES IN THE SUBSTITUTION OF DURABLE WATER AND OIL REPELLENTS IN THE TEXTILE FINISHING INDUSTRY” on June 5^th in Brussels along with other projects and major EU stakeholders like EURATEX and the European Chemical Agency (ECHA).

Registration is available here.