TextileMission: Microplastics of Textile Origin - Retention of Polyester Particles in the Sewage Treatment Plant and Environmental Stability of new Materials.

Projektleiter:      Prof. Dr. Stefan Stolte
Bearbeiter:         Dr. Ya-Qi Zhang, M.Sc. Marianna Lykaki, Dr. Marta Markiewicz
Finanzierung:     BMBF
Laufzeit:             09/2017 - 03/2021

Microplastics (MP, plastic particles <5mm) are a subject of intense research, due to the enormous release of plastic to the environment and the arising environmental concerns. Polyester fibres originating from textiles have been indicated as an important source of MPs in the environment. Globally more than 55 million tons of polyester fibres are produced annually. Mechanical and chemical stress that a fabric undergoes during the domestic washing cause fibre shedding, as a result synthetic MPs are introduced into wastewater. The German Federal Environment Agency (UBA) estimated that 80 to 400 t of MP particles are released from textiles in Germany.

The TextileMission project is supported by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), within the framework program “Plastic in the Environment: Sources, Sinks and Solutions”. The project brings together academia, textile manufactures and environmental management agencies to gain a better understanding of release and environmental fate of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) based MPs from textiles and to finally derive approaches to reduce their emission into the environment. More details about the project and involved partners is available from TextileMission webpage.

Please have a look at our proejct videos (in German, 7min):

The Institute of Water Chemistry at the TU Dresden covering following research tasks:

• Development of a filtration cascade which allows for the separation of fibres from water and fractionation of the fibres according to their sizes. 
• Establishment of a method for (semi) automatic evaluation of number and size of PET fibres via digital image processing of fluorescently labelled fibres.
• Determination of the retention of different MPs size fractions within different stages of a Wastewater Treatment Plant (i.e sedimentation, nitrification, denitrification, sand filters, active carbon filters) on laboratory scale.
• Analysis and assessment of polyester material flows and MPs emissions to the environment.
• (Bio)degradability assessment of novel biopolymer-based materials under realistic environmental conditions.
• Development of designing criteria for the development of ʺenvironmental friendlyʺ materials.

Data on the MPs shedding from different textiles and retention in various stages of wastewater treatment are to be collected in order to achieve an improved understanding of the material flows and the fate of textile MPs. These data will be used to develop a strategy of minimising the input of MPs of textile origin into the environment.

Read more here:

Y.-Q. Zhang,   M. Lykaki,   M. T. Alrajoula,   M. Markiewicz,   C. Kraas,   S. Kolbe,   K. Klinkhammer,   M. Rabe,   R. Klauer,   E. Bendt  and  S. Stolte (2021) Microplastics from textile origin – emission and reduction measures. Green Chemistry, Accepted manuscript

or in our brochure presenting the final outcome of the project.

Contact:

M.Sc. Marianna Lykaki (Marianna.Lykaki@tu-dresden.de)

Dr. YaQi Zhang (Yaqi.Zhang@tu-dresden.de)

Dr. Marta Markiewicz (Marta.Markiewicz@tu-dresden.de)