OCCA Weekly Webinar - "Solutions for Textile Finishing in a Sustainable and Circular Economy"
Venue: Webinar
Date: Wednesday 4th November 2020
Time: 14:30 – 15:30
Our Autumn Series of OCCA Weekly Webinars continues with "Solutions for Textile Finishing in a Sustainable and Circular Economy" presented by Anita Barni of ICAP-SIRA Chemicals and Polymers S.p.A.
This webinar is free to attend. Simply register below and you'll receive further details and joining instructions in due course.
Abstract:
The vision of a sustainable economy, based on “circulating” re-using or deconstructing resources, is rapidly advancing.
Circular economy is an opportunity (but also a global necessity!) to consume less resources and energy, and hinges on the principles of maximum efficiency and reuse.
Moreover, digital innovation is a very powerful force, able to activate new business models. Many of these have the potential to make companies more efficient in consuming resources and help in new process development.
As a result companies are proactively searching for alternative raw materials and production processes for the development of new materials that can have a lower toxicological and environmental impact.
Think about 3D printing which has the advantage of decentralizing the manufacturing of plastic products and can significantly reduce transportation costs and overproduction. But an analysis has to be done on the cost and waste connected to the printers production and to the possibility of useless stuff-low-cost-making.
Complete decentralization is not imaginable and even not advisable therefore the sharing economy will play an important role in the development of the circular economy.
In this landscape textile finishing will probably remain an industrial prerogative and in the future the safety of the process will be granted in all steps; starting from raw material selection, passing through chemical synthesis and ending with reuse/recycle of all the article at the end of life.
Virtuous examples of new sustainable technologies are already available in the field of polymer production for textile finishing in order to:
- Eliminate organic solvents
- Avoid/limit the use of toxic substances in all steps of production
- Produce biodegradable articles
- Substitute fossil origin raw materials with renewable ones
- Reduce carbon footprint
In particular:
- new bi-component polyurethane systems for in situ polymerization as substitutes of solvent based products
- biodegradable polymers waterbased dispersions for coating, laminating and padding in substitution of traditional vinyl/acrylic products
- high performance low eco-toxicological impact polymer dispersions.
Speaker Profile - Anita Barni
Global Business Development Manager
ICAP-SIRA Chemicals and Polymers S.p.A.
Degree in chemistry in 1995 at Milan University.
Master in “Chemical synthesis” in 2000 with research work on polyurethane characterization in collaboration with Politecnico di Milano.
Working in Icap-Sira S.p.A. since 1996. Since 2002 manager of analytics and regulatory compliance; since 2014 manager of textile application laboratory and since January 2020 Global Business Development Manager.
