"Advanced Textile technology"- 5 credits

- Production of nanofibers: electrospinning
Electrospinning has been popularized as a versatile approach to fabricate ultrafine fibers with diameters ranging from nano- to microscale for various applications. Compared with fibers prepared by conventional methods (wet spinning, dry spinning, melt spinning, and gel spinning), electrospun fibers have larger aspect ratio, higher surface area-to-volume ratio, and easy processability. Generally, the electrospun fibers are nonwoven webs that are of great interest in nanosized filtration material, separator applications, tissue scaffolding , and other biomedical applications. This technology will be deeply discussed taking into account the effect of the different parameter of the electrospinning procedure related to the final properties of the electrospun fibers.
- Innovative textile finishing processes: nanocoatings obtained by plasma treatment, sol-gel, layer-by-layer, UV photo-polymerization, microcapsules, cyclodextrins (durable press finishes, repellent finishes, hand modification, soil-release finishes, conductive coatings, cosmetotextiles) The plasma treatment, sol-gel process, layer-by-layer deposition, UV photo-polymerization, microcapsule formation, are well known technologies that can be adopted in the field of innovative textile finishing processes. These technologies will be discussed with special focused on their new applications in textiles. Specific examples will be shown from recent literature data.
- Ink jet printing
The ink-jet printing is a new technology already widely employed in the field of electronics, where it is replacing the photolithography technique. The main advantage of this technology is the possibility of using conductive inks to be printed on different substrates, as well as fibers and cloths. The potential application of this technology will be discussed on the basis of different applications in textile.
- Use of enzymes in textile finishing
Description of enzymatic finishing processes. Differente enzymes for decomposition reactions:
– proteases: splitting of albuminous proteins (into amino acids) during degumming and felt-free finishing.
– amylases: splitting of starches (into saccharides) in desizing.
– cellulases: splitting of cellulose (into saccharides) in cotton softening and in the biological degradation of cotton and also in carbonation
– ligninases: (pectinases for soaping, galacturonases): splitting of lignin during carbonisation and scouring.


"Process control and reliability"- 5 credits

1) Safety and health in workplace
Safety in the workplace. Risk assessment.
Machineries and equipment dependability
Physical and chemical hazards in the textile industry.
Classification of dangerous chemicals.

2) Process control
1. Piping and Instrumentation Drawings / Diagrams.
2. Transmitters and transducers
3. Industrial instrumentation of monitoring, measuring and control of chemical composition, the level of a liquid, gas or liquid flow rate, temperature and differential pressure
4. Advanced control schemes: feedforward, cascade and ratio control

3) Environmental issues in the textile industry
Elements of legislation
- Definition of Best Available Technique (BAT)
- Environmental issues: consumptions and emissions.
- Main sectors of the textile industry:
Wool scouring
Fiber preparation
Finishing
Pretreatment
Dyeing
Printing
Finishing
Washing
Drying
Carpet industry
- Process-integrated techniques to reduce environmental impacts
- End-of-pipe techniques to reduce environmental impacts