www.worldofchemicals.com By Shivani Mody
Over the years, how has the traditional textile industry changed and how do you see it shaping up in the future?
In terms of trends, lot of advanced materials based on core areas such as material science are getting incorporated into the textile industry. Some of the value-adding materials used dominantly in cosmetics and pharmaceutical sectors are finding their way into the textiles. It is mostly about bringing in functionality into textiles and giving better value to the customers.
There are two major changes which has changed the way traditional textile industry functioned. One is the e-retailing business which is becoming big in today’s market place. People are buying online through websites and mobile apps, which is replacing conventional stores into e-stores. Since the touch and feel aspect is missing, it becomes a challenge to communicate the properties and characteristics of the material to the customer. And to attract business, this information has to be communicated to the customers. The other change is in the thought process, wherein textiles are now being considered as an interface between human being and his/her gadgets. With the growth of internet of things or rather internet of everything, we need to start thinking of ways in which textile/ clothes as an article can be used as a medium to communicate a person’s health and hygiene aspects. The shift is towards developing wearable technologies that will essentially communicate the health and wellness of the person. Furthermore, wearable technologies are to be embedded into the textiles. While creating these materials, one needs to consider the chemicals used, washing cycles, sensing and measuring devices to make them useful for consumers. These are long-term projects that are being carried out with research institutes. A lot of thought goes into the usage of these textile articles and then comes in the design elements. Along with manufacturing, we have to consider the entire chemistry & design aspect and even look at materials that will be used for these modern day technologies.
Chemical Today Magazine | January 2016
What is your work on silicone polymers and formulations.
Our strength lies in building functionality onto the silicone backbones and creating new molecules from it. This is a complex task and as a company, we have developed expertise in this area.
The challenge is about taking these molecules and applying them on the textile’s surface while considering the formulation technology and chemical properties that will play an important role while using the molecules and polymers on to the textiles. Considering the environmental aspects, silicon polymers are completely biodegradable.
With the growth of internet of things or rather internet of everything, we need to start thinking of how textiles/clothes as an article can be used as a medium to communicate about a person’s health and hygiene aspects
One of the major challenges in the textile industry is to manage water usage. Most of the textile processes- be it dyeing, finishing or general washes similar to a laundry system, use water as the core medium for application. Hence, the industry is now moving in the direction of reducing the wet processes. This in turn had led to enhancing our capabilities and developing new silicone formulations. If you look at the textile value chain, it first starts with fibre – yarn – fabrics – and finally, the garment. Companies are looking at cutting down the water usage from the fibre and yarn stage which needs additional functionality for the textiles. This is one area where research is being done to get the silicon functionality built-in into the material at the time of manufacturing the fibre or the yarn.
There is a major emphasis on ‘sustainable chemistry’ or the usage of biodegradable chemicals. How is the industry moving towards achieving this goal?
Sustainability is definitely a buzzword and it is about saving the environment at the end of the day. Sustainability is also one of the core pillars at Resil and our products and technology works on the policy - save energy, save water and save chemicals.
Our products help customers save energy by reducing the number of washings or by cutting down water required during processing cycles. Also we use natural raw materials for our products making them biodegradable. Our effort is to build sustainability as a complete package and offer it as a value-addition for customers. Major brands and retailers have sustainability as their core mission, which makes the entire supply chain shift from non-sustainable to sustainable products. One of our highly appreciated product is the n9 pure silver. During washing cycles, most of the chemicals get washed out which pollute the environment. With the usage of n9 pure silver we ensure that it does not get removed while washing and hence prevent environment pollution. The other important aspect is to consider how much chemicals does one load onto the textiles. The minimum amount of chemicals is always suitable as over a period of time the chemicals will eventually go into the environment in one form or the other. It is important to create chemicals that require minimum dosage, to deliver maximum performance. Here the need is to pass the efficiency onto the end consumers and also to the processors in the supply chain.
What are the research projects going on in your company?
Currently we are working with many technologies such as the cooling and heating technologies for textiles. Considering the Indian climate, perspiration is common in the country especially during summers.
In such a situation, technologies that help cool the fabric when it is hot are becoming essential. Keeping in line with this, we have developed some of the cooling polymers which can help reduce the temperature of the textiles upto 3 degrees C. Our product, Innocelle, an aqueous
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