Biodegradation behavior of textiles impregnated with Ag and TiO2 nanoparticles in soil

Abstract

Increasing global consumption of textile goods poses serious environmental problems that are present throughout the products life-cycles. With a trend of Fast Fashion, clothes became consuming goods that are discarded in huge amounts into landfills where they rot generating undesirable gases which contribute to environmental pollution and greenhouse effect. A large-scale centralized composting is a possible alternative to harmful landfilling. It is well known that different textile fibers exhibit diverse biodegradation behavior. Unlike most of the synthetic fibers, natural and particularly cellulosic fibers are prone to biodegradation. However, the finishing and thus, the presence of different chemicals on fiber surfaces may affect their biodegradation performance. Recent progress in the production of textiles impregnated with different metal and metal oxide nanoparticles is more oriented toward end-use achievements than on their environmental and health safety impacts. Despite the urgency to establish their environmental risk assessment, there are only few papers dealing with biodegradation behavior of such textile nanocomposites under terrestrial conditions. Therefore, this chapter is aimed to provide an insight into these results and to stress the necessity of extended research in this field taking into consideration that various characteristics of nanoparticles are relevant for their biodegradation behavior.