| Name | Auxiliaries |
In the textile industry, textile additives are used from spinning, spinning, sizing, weaving or knitting, refining, finishing to finished product processing. Textile additives are crucial for upgrading and increasing the added value of textiles. They not only make textiles more functional, such as antibacterial, anti-corrosion, waterproof, flame-retardant, shrinkproof, wrinkle resistant, soft, moisture permeable, and static elimination, but also transform the process to make textiles more high-end, modern, and green. With the rapid development of the textile industry and the increasing pace of China's reform and opening up, the export value of textiles has exceeded the export value of oil, accounting for the first place in the country's export earnings. This provides a good opportunity for the development of textile additives. At the same time, with the increasing demand for green textiles and environmental and ecological protection, environmental friendly textile additives have become the main direction of development for textile additives today. The Eco Tex Standard 100 issued by the International Textile Ecology Research and Inspection Association clearly states that environmentally friendly textile additives must not only have the required fastness and application properties in the textile industry, but also meet the following environmental quality requirements.
(1) Biodegradability or removability. The European Community points out that environmentally friendly surfactants must have an average biodegradability of 90% and an initial biodegradability of 80%.
(2) Toxicity. The toxicity of textile additives includes acute toxicity, fish toxicity, bacterial and algal toxicity, represented by LD50, LC50, and ECO50, respectively. BASF company stipulates that the advanced toxicity index for fish additives is LC50>100mg/L, and LC50 can be used between 1-100mg/L. If the LC50 of additives is less than 1mg/L, it belongs to strong toxicity; ECO50>100mg/L is an advanced standard, and can be used between 1-100mg/L. If the ECO50 of the auxiliary agent is<1mg/L, it cannot be used.
(3) It cannot contain free formaldehyde. Formaldehyde is irritating to human skin and mucous membranes and may cause cancer. The Eco Tex Standard 100 strictly stipulates the limit values for formaldehyde in clothing of different objects. Children's clothing contains less than 20mg/kg of free formaldehyde, clothing that directly contacts the skin has less than 75mg/kg of free formaldehyde, and clothing and textiles that do not directly contact the skin, as well as decorative textiles, cannot exceed 300mg/kg of free formaldehyde.
(4) It cannot contain environmental hormones. Environmental hormones are a class of chemicals that are extremely harmful to human health and the ecological environment, also known as endocrine disruptors. They can bind to hormone receptors or reduce hormones in the blood, thereby disrupting the endocrine and developmental processes of humans and animals, causing abnormalities in the reproductive capacity of wild animals and human genetics. Therefore, textile additives cannot contain environmental hormones. At present, there are about 10 kinds of banned environmental hormones related to textile auxiliaries, namely polychlorinated dioxins, polychlorinated diphenyl isofurans, polychlorinated biphenyls, polybrominated biphenyls, Alkylphenol, p-nitrotoluene, pentachlorophenol, o-phenylphenol, p-phenylphenol, etc.
(5) It cannot contain heavy metals. There are relatively few textile additives containing heavy metals, such as fixing agent M and waterproof agent CR. The Eco Tex Standard 100 strictly stipulates the limit values of 10 metals, namely antimony, arsenic, lead, chromium, cadmium, cobalt, copper, nickel, mercury, etc., on different textiles, and textile additives must comply with this requirement.
(6) Cannot contain carcinogenic aromatic amines. The Eco-Tex Standard 100 specifies that all dyes must not contain 23 carcinogenic aromatic amines, such as benzidine.
(7) It must not contain adsorbeable organic halides.
(8) It cannot contain other harmful chemicals.