Rising human carbon dioxide emissions may be affecting the brains and central nervous system of sea fishes with serious consequences for their survival, an international scientific team has found.

Carbon dioxide concentrations predicted to occur in the ocean by the end of this century will interfere with fishes’ ability to hear, smell, turn and evade predators, says Professor Philip Munday of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies and James Cook University.

“For several years our team have been testing the performance of baby coral fishes in sea water containing higher levels of dissolved CO2 – and it is now pretty clear that they sustain significant disruption to their central nervous system, which is likely to impair their chances of survival,” Prof. Munday says.

In their latest paper, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, Prof. Munday and colleagues report world-first evidence that high CO2 levels in sea water disrupts a key brain receptor in fish, causing marked changes in their behaviour and sensory ability.

“We’ve found that elevated CO2 in the oceans can directly interfere with fish neurotransmitter functions, which poses a direct and previously unknown threat to sea life,” Prof. Munday says.

Prof. Munday and his colleagues began by studying how baby clown and damsel fishes performed alongside their predators in CO2-enriched water. They found that, while the predators were somewhat affected, the baby fish suffered much higher rates of attrition.

“Our early work showed that the sense of smell of baby fish was harmed by higher CO2 in the water – meaning they found it harder to locate a reef to settle on or detect the warning smell of a predator fish. But we suspected there was much more to it than the loss of ability to smell.”

The team then examined whether fishes’ sense of hearing – used to locate and home in on reefs at night, and avoid them during the day – was affected. “The answer is, yes it was. They were confused and no longer avoided reef sounds during the day. Being attracted to reefs during daylight would make them easy meat for predators.”

Other work showed the fish also tended to lose their natural instinct to turn left or right – an important factor in schooling behaviour which also makes them more vulnerable, as lone fish are easily eaten by predators.

“All this led us to suspect it wasn’t simply damage to their individual senses that was going on – but rather, that higher levels of carbon dioxide were affecting their whole central nervous system.”

The team’s latest research shows that high CO2 directly stimulates a receptor in the fish brain called GABA-A, leading to a reversal in its normal function and over-excitement of certain nerve signals.

While most animals with brains have GABA-A receptors, the team considers the effects of elevated CO2 are likely to be most felt by those living in water, as they have lower blood CO2 levels normally. The main impact is likely to be felt by some crustaceans and by most fishes, especially those which use a lot of oxygen.

Prof. Munday said that around 2.3 billion tonnes of human CO2 emissions dissolve into the world’s oceans every year, causing changes in the chemical environment of the water in which fish and other species live.

“We’ve now established it isn’t simply the acidification of the oceans that is causing disruption – as is the case with shellfish and plankton with chalky skeletons – but the actual dissolved CO2 itself is damaging the fishes’ nervous systems.”

The work shows that fish with high oxygen consumption are likely to be most affected, suggesting the effects of high CO2 may impair some species worse than others – possibly including important species targeted by the world’s fishing industries.

The team’s latest paper “Near-future CO2 levels alter fish behaviour by interfering with neurotransmitter function” by Göran E. Nilsson, Danielle L. Dixson, Paolo Domenici, Mark I. McCormick, Christina Sørensen, Sue-Ann Watson, and Philip L. Munday appears in the journal Nature Climate Change.

Source: http://www.coralcoe.org.au/news_stories/braindamage.html

Predicted future CO2 levels have been found to alter sensory responses and behaviour of marine fishes. Changes include increased boldness and activity, loss of behavioural lateralization, altered auditory preferences and impaired olfactory function1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Impaired olfactory function makes larval fish attracted to odours they normally avoid, including ones from predators and unfavourable habitats1, 3. These behavioural alterations have significant effects on mortality that may have far-reaching implications for population replenishment, community structure and ecosystem function2, 6. However, the underlying mechanism linking high CO2 to these diverse responses has been unknown. Here we show that abnormal olfactory preferences and loss of behavioural lateralization exhibited by two species of larval coral reef fish exposed to high CO2 can be rapidly and effectively reversed by treatment with an antagonist of the GABA-A receptor. GABA-A is a major neurotransmitter receptor in the vertebrate brain. Thus, our results indicate that high CO2 interferes with neurotransmitter function, a hitherto unrecognized threat to marine populations and ecosystems. Given the ubiquity and conserved function of GABA-A receptors, we predict that rising CO2 levels could cause sensory and behavioural impairment in a wide range of marine species, especially those that tightly control their acid–base balance through regulatory changes in HCO3− and Cl− levels.

Carbon Dioxide Capture from the Air Using a Polyamine Based Regenerable Solid Adsorbent

Alain Goeppert, Miklos Czaun, Robert B. May, G. K. Surya Prakash, George A. Olah, and S. R. Narayanan

Loker Hydrocarbon Research Institute and Department of Chemistry, University of Southern California, University Park, Los Angeles, California 90089-1661, United States

Easy to prepare solid materials based on fumed silica impregnated with polyethylenimine (PEI) were found to be superior adsorbents for the capture of carbon dioxide directly from air. During the initial hours of the experiments, these adsorbents effectively scrubbed all the CO2 from the air despite its very low concentration.

The effect of moisture on the adsorption characteristics and capacity was studied at room temperature. Regenerative ability was also determined in a short series of adsorption/desorption cycles.

Download as PDF attachment

MIT today announced the launch of an online learning initiative internally called “MITx.” MITx will offer a portfolio of MIT courses through an online interactive learning platform that will:

• organize and present course material to enable students to learn at their own pace
• feature interactivity, online laboratories and student-to-student communication
• allow for the individual assessment of any student’s work and allow students who demonstrate their mastery of subjects to earn a certificate of completion awarded by MITx
• operate on an open-source, scalable software infrastructure in order to make it continuously improving and readily available to other educational institutions.

MIT expects that this learning platform will enhance the educational experience of its on-campus students, offering them online tools that supplement and enrich their classroom and laboratory experiences. MIT also expects that MITx will eventually host a virtual community of millions of learners around the world.

MIT will couple online learning with research on learning

MIT’s online learning initiative is led by MIT Provost L. Rafael Reif, and its development will be coupled with an MIT-wide research initiative on online teaching and learning under his leadership.

“Students worldwide are increasingly supplementing their classroom education with a variety of online tools,” Reif said. “Many members of the MIT faculty have been experimenting with integrating online tools into the campus education. We will facilitate those efforts, many of which will lead to novel learning technologies that offer the best possible online educational experience to non-residential learners. Both parts of this new initiative are extremely important to the future of high-quality, affordable, accessible education.”

Offering interactive MIT courses online to learners around the world builds upon MIT’s OpenCourseWare, a free online publication of nearly all of MIT’s undergraduate and graduate course materials. Now in its 10th year, OpenCourseWare includes nearly 2,100 MIT courses and has been used by more than 100 million people.

MIT President Susan Hockfield said, “MIT has long believed that anyone in the world with the motivation and ability to engage MIT coursework should have the opportunity to attain the best MIT-based educational experience that Internet technology enables. OpenCourseWare’s great success signals high demand for MIT’s course content and propels us to advance beyond making content available. MIT now aspires to develop new approaches to online teaching.”

OCW will continue to share course materials from across the MIT curriculum, free of charge.

MITx online learning tools to be freely available

MIT will make the MITx open learning software available free of cost, so that others — whether other universities or different educational institutions, such as K-12 school systems — can leverage the same software for their online education offerings.

“Creating an open learning infrastructure will enable other communities of developers to contribute to it, thereby making it self-sustaining,” said Anant Agarwal, an MIT professor of electrical engineering and computer science and director of MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL). “An open infrastructure will facilitate research on learning technologies and also enable learning content to be easily portable to other educational platforms that will develop. In this way the infrastructure will improve continuously as it is used and adapted.” Agarwal is leading the development of the open platform.

President Hockfield called this “a transformative initiative for MIT and for online learning worldwide. On our residential campus, the heart of MIT, students and faculty are already integrating on-campus and online learning, but the MITx initiative will greatly accelerate that effort. It will also bring new energy to our longstanding effort to educate millions of able learners across the United States and around the world. And in offering an open-source technological platform to other educational institutions everywhere, we hope that teachers and students the world over will together create learning opportunities that break barriers to education everywhere.”

Source: http://web.mit.edu

BEIJING — As the Chinese government struggles to meet several of its own environmental targets to 2015, China’s textile industry could face a new ‘green tax’, which together with higher wages and a slump in exports, puts additional pressure on an industry that is already facing big challenges.

Within the last few weeks, the State Council of China has revealed that it is preparing a new ‘green tax’ for the country’s giant manufacturing sector in a bid to meet its own overall environmental targets and commitments as part of its 12th five-year plan to 2015. And in a bid to boost its chances of hitting these targets, China will now “actively promote reforms in environment related taxes” and “conduct research regarding the collection of an environmental tax’’, a policy note carried by the state-run Xinhua news agency has reported.
The move suggests that the debut of a ‘green tax’ is now officially on the Chinese government’s agenda and that reform will make substantial progress during the country’s 12th Five-Year Plan period, said the official state media organization.

Calls for the debut of an environmental tax have grown considerably in recent years, as China’s explosive development in the manufacturing sector has taken a heavy toll on its resources and environment. “The stress on environmental tax reforms in the guideline comes as China faces a grim situation in meeting its emission control target,” Bai Jingming, an official from the Ministry of Finance said.

In a blueprint of China’s energy-saving programs, China says it aims to cut energy consumption per 10,000 yuan ($1,570) of gross domestic product (GDP) by 16 per cent by 2015, saving 670 million tons of coal equivalent by that time.

The move comes as China’s government also promises to evaluate the environmental performance of listed companies and on November 16 it listed an investigation into the environmental responsibility of more than 2,000 A-share listed companies. The evaluation “will be based on the most prevalent international standards and conducted by third parties,” said government sources, and the results are planned to be released in a report in December 2012, along with a list of the most environment-friendly companies as an example for future industrial development.

Meanwhile, last month, the Vice-chairman of Federal of Hong Kong Industries said that minimum wages in the Pearl River Delta region are likely to go up by 16 – 20% from January 1st 2012.

“This means textile companies here can expect a dramatic rise in labour costs and together with higher raw material prices,” it said, and could result in significant business failures for firms that are “highly labour intensive and produce basic textile products”.

]]> http://www.flainox.com/blog/2011/12/china-manufacturing-tax/feed/ 0 http://www.flainox.com/blog/2011/12/arvind-spring-denim-collection/ http://www.flainox.com/blog/2011/12/arvind-spring-denim-collection/#comments Thu, 15 Dec 2011 08:57:33 +0000 Flainox http://www.flainox.com/blog/?p=1319

Arvind Spring launches Summer 2013 Denim Collection

Arvind launches its Spring and Summer – 2013 for European Brands at Denim by Premiere Vision, Paris. The collection brings the best in Denim for Spring and Summer – 2013. Some key products to be showcased  by Arvind are:

• Light weight Shirtings in Linen Blends and Light weight cross denims for loose bottoms.
• A set of Soft stretch and power stretch in cold grey and black. Cement color, grey coat and hints of black are the key ashen look of the season.
• The 80-ies inspired indigo is still the season’s favorite in rigid and stretch.
• For the contortionist they have power stretch in soft hand, rich full blue and red cast sateen.
• The Summer Luxe has very refined light weight rigid and stretch along with new slubby light weight.
• Sensual Denims are bright indigo, open weave in Excel stretch. Other sensual denims are soft power stretches and new wax touch.
• The Time -Tested Products are in 80’s inspired color in modern construction, super dark indigo cross denim, refined one way slubby look and real vintage, grey cast, natural streaky denim. Soft Streaky Denim features in 11 Ozs and 9Ozs.

Arvind shall also be presenting  the Excel Denim in Trend Area at Denim by PV on 30th Nov.  Arvind Denim has a very strong positioning on ‘ Sustainability’. Various products like Organic Denims , BCI cotton based denims, Recycled cotton and Recycled Polyester based denims are an important part of Arvind Denim portfolio. This commitment to sustainability also had led Arvind to develop its Excel Denim in collaboration with Birla Excel. The third generation Cellulose fiber – Excel is made from Wood Pulp, a natural and renewable resource. Arvind and Birla claim the following eco benefits of Excel Fiber : “Excel Plantations have higher air purification per hectare of land in comparison to cotton. Solar heat absorption prevents generation of black holes. The water used for producing per unit kg of Excel fiber is significantly lesser than compared to the water used for producing any other cellulosic fiber”.

Arvind Denim True Properties

Excel denim offers a unique combination of sustainability and fashion and is being added to collections of major brands worldwide.

Arvind shall also be presenting their Future Denims at the show which includes the:

• Authentic Denims
• Modern Denims

Authentic Denim includes denim from Organic Cotton, dyed in Natural Plant Indigo and woven on the vintage shuttle loom with selvedge. Denims range from a true authentic heavy weight 14.8 Ozs, Selvedge toa Natural Indigo with Natural Indigo fill to one with a Natural Linen. All of them are very comfortable to wear and age naturally.

Arvind Spring Denim Collection

Modern Denim includes denim made with all modern technologies available. New age yarn design, new combinations of dyeing, compact weave constructions, hybrid stretch combinations and super-tech coatings.

Source: denimsandjeans.com

With Google Earth you can view climate change scenarios, interact with narrated tours, investigate deforestation, and even dive into the depths of the oceans.

]]> http://www.flainox.com/blog/2011/12/google-earth-climate-change/feed/ 0 http://www.flainox.com/blog/2011/12/vintage-denim-and-environment/ http://www.flainox.com/blog/2011/12/vintage-denim-and-environment/#comments Mon, 12 Dec 2011 14:05:41 +0000 Flainox http://www.flainox.com/blog/?p=1340 Vintage Denim – At What Cost To Environment ?

Vintage Denim – At What Cost To Environment ?

Readymade garment sector is booming world wide & specially in 3rd world countries, and garment processing has emerged as one of the important production routes towards meeting quick changing demands of the fashion market. In this article we look at processing of denim garments & its impact on environment.

Brands seeking to improve their environmental credentials can look beyond the use of organic cotton to a range of new products and technologies that lower the levels of chemicals, stones residue, rivets, buttons, hand tags, water and energy needed to manufacture denim fabric & garments.

The spread of denim culture, all over the world brought with it a trend of fast changing fashions. One after another, several washes were introduced such as stone wash, acid wash, moonwash, monkey wash, show wash, frosted wash, white wash, mud wash, distressed wash etc. Over the last 6-8 years, India has probably seen the most dramatic and exciting changes in the washing of denim garments.

Although the denim industry has long been known to be resource intensive, a full picture wasn’t known publicly until Levi Strauss & Co. shared results of its life cycle assessment on what went into making one pair of its iconic Levi’s 501 style.

Examining the 2006 production year for jeans headed to the U.S. market, Levi’s found that making one pair of 501s required almost 920 gallons of water, 400 mega joules of energy and expelled 32 kilograms of carbon dioxide. Levi’s said this was equivalent to running a garden hose for 106 minutes, driving 78 miles and powering a computer for 556 hours.

Faded, ripped scrunched and ‘distressed’ to the ultimate degree are very costly denim garments for well-known brands cost USD 100 plus for a pair! However, hot this distressed denim might appear on the runway there is a more depressing tale to tell apart from the overpricing, regarding the production of denim in general and the techniques and practices employed in the stonewashing and distressing process with various chemicals.

There are huge ecological and ethical concerns as this business is an enormous affair. To give an example , more than 520 million pairs of jeans are sold in USA alone each year. The majority of which will have been coloured with dyes, acid bathed, sandblasted and chemically doused to give the aged , worn in look we all so desire.

• The life cycle of denim starts with the cotton boll, amid the vast cotton crops recorded as covering 2.4% of the world’s farm land. If not organically grown the valuable crops will be drenched in toxic pesticides to protect them from insects and weeds. Organophosphates are used which are poisonous and ultimately pass into the soil and reek havoc with wildlife.
• Cotton fibres are spun into yarn and the denim yarn is “sized” using starch to give it strength and “mercerized” in caustic soda. Starch is biodegradable but if released into the rivers the microbes that devour it also consume the oxygen. This in turn kills off the aquatic life in the water as does the toxic caustic soda.
• Other shocking facts are that it takes 1,500 gallons of water to produce 1.5 lbs of cotton needed to make one pair of jeans.
• To achieve the correct blue shade, the denim in doused in vats of synthetic indigo. Environmental regulations are not upheld in many developing countries. Apart from the initial dyeing the stone washing or distressing of the denim is achieved by repeated washing and rinsing and bleaching, chemical blasting with such toxic substances such silica, dye stripped or bleached with potassium permanganate. All toxic to wildlife if let into the waterways and to the workers who breathe it in.
• Very recently we came to know similar situation of untreated water was going in to rivers & waste was spread every where on streets in Lesotho. Worldwide many water sources and land are affected by untreated water from Laundries & Denim plants.

Is Anything Can Be Or Being Done To Control The Damage

1. There are  many up and coming companies producing friendly denim using organic cotton and more eco friendly ways of distressing the fabric, such as using ozone to fade the denim It is the responsibility of the consumer to search these enlightened businesses out by checking for labels such as Fair Trade and Global Organic Standard certification and the Recycling logo.
2. Some designers have solved the problem in another way by recycling old denim, naturally aged and worn by time, and re-styled and modelled it into new and inventive fashion designs. Denim seems to be an ongoing favorites on the fashion scene and as such needs to clean up its act totally to keep in step with the environmental and ethical requirements that are so rightly being put into place as a global fashion and textile effort.
3. There are many eco friendly ways being introduced & keep coming. Reducing chemicals consumption and Stone usages , Enzymes being introduced in each process step.. desizing , Abrasion & now its being used bleaching enzymes also…. these are bio degradable products hence eco friendly. At fabric front Denim Mills started producing quicker wash down denim to have faster distress look with minimum efforts & usage of chemicals.
4. Many chemical companies making their products keeping in mind the Global Restricted substances of toxic chemicals to produce environment friendly products. All most all leading brands started critical testing’s of their merchandise through third party testing for these banned chemicals.A large chemical company – Clariant – recently introduced a product – Advanced Denim – which it claims water usage by 60% during dye process.
5. Buildinggreen.com is using denim waste to create cotton insulation products.

However, these steps are far few and make hardly any impact. It is only when the governments the world over realize the impact of denim that we will see real innovations towards creating products which will help in reduction of the same.

Source: denimsandjeans.com

The financial crisis of 2009 saw the developing world’s carbon emissions from consumption shoot past the developed world’s years earlier than expected, new research shows

The carbon footprint from consumption in the developing world has overtaken that of the developed world, according to research published on Monday. The change happened years earlier than expected due to the fact that the developing world’s emissions were largely unaffected by the global financial crisis.

Emissions within the borders of developing countries outstripped those emitted in developed countries (as defined by the Kyoto Protocol’s ‘Annex B’) in around 2005. But the rich world still accounted for the majority of the carbon footprint of consumption due to the goods it imports from China and other developing economies.

Crowds outside an Apple store in Beijing in 2011; the developing world's carbon emissions from consumption have now overtaken the developed world's. Photograph: ChinaFotoPress/Getty Images

Experts expected this situation to remain unchanged until around 2015, but the research in the journal Nature Climate Change shows that developing nations came to represent the majority of the carbon footprint of global consumption in around 2009, years earlier than expected.

The shift happened as a result of the markedly different way that emissions were affected by the global financial crisis in rich and poor countries. As the chart above shows, whereas the developed world’s emissions fell steeply in 2009 before bouncing back to a lower level in 2010, the developing world shot up throughout the period, apparently unaffected by the financial crisis.

Of course, this revelation doesn’t make individuals in the developing world more responsible for climate change than those in the developed world. On the contrary, the footprint per person is still far greater in the rich world, with its much smaller population, than in the highly populous developing world.

Furthermore, the rich world still has a larger historical footprint, having emitted around 73% of the CO2 since 1850, according to [figures from the WRI. Free log-in required]. Much of that CO2 is still in the air and driving current global warming.

Nonetheless, the fact that developing nations have come to represent the majority of the world’s carbon footprint touches on some of the key tensions in the UN global climate talks – in particular, the question of whether any deal needs to include binding emissions commitments from China and others large emerging economies.

The figures also highlights the increasing fragmentation of the traditional “developing world” category into different groups, including the poorest countries with minimal carbon emissions and the larger transitional economies with substantial carbon footprints.

The paper also examines how the recent financial turmoil compares to four previous economic crises in terms of impact on emissions.

How emissions have bounced back after economic crises. Source: Nature Climate Change

Worryingly, as the chart above shows, whereas previous recessions appear to have reduced the rate of emissions growth for decades to come, the current crisis has seen a full rebound to the recent rising trend within two years. In other words, thanks to strong growth in emerging economies, recent economic woes appear to have had almost zero impact on global carbon emissions.

Source: guardian.co.uk

Capturing CO2 Too Costly to Combat Climate Change?

Since a buildup of humanmade carbon dioxide is causing the planet to warm, why not just suck this greenhouse gas straight out of the atmosphere? That’s one strategy scientists have proposed to combat climate change. But a new analysis suggests that the approach may be neither economical nor practical.

Before widespread industrial activity began spewing CO2 into the air in the mid-1700s, atmospheric concentrations of the gas were around 280 parts per million (ppm). They now exceed 390 ppm and are growing rapidly, about 2 ppm per year. Rather than reducing emissions of the greenhouse gas by shifting to carbon-neutral sources of energy—wind, solar, and nuclear power, for example—and then letting vegetation and the oceans gradually absorb CO2 in the long term, humans could lower concentrations more rapidly by actively pulling CO2 from the air, some scientists have suggested.

In such a scheme, researchers would leave large vats out in the open, filled with solutions of sodium hydroxide, potassium hydroxide, or chemicals called amines. Or, the CO2-laden air could be forcefully bubbled through such reservoirs. When CO2 in the air reacts with these solutions, it becomes trapped in carbonate-rich compounds. Scientists can later heat these compounds and release the CO2 and dispose of it, typically by injecting it into deep geologic formations beneath impermeable rock, such as natural reservoirs of oil and natural gas.

The approach is a form of carbon capture, which also includes strategies for grabbing CO2 before it gets into the air, from smokestacks, for example. Carbon capture itself is part of a suite of ideas, dubbed geoengineering, in which scientists hope to use technology to curb global warming. (Other ideas involve schemes such as seeding the seas with zillions of tiny bubbles to reflect sunlight back into space.)

Previous studies have hinted that capturing CO2 directly from the air could cost a few hundred dollars per metric ton of CO2. At a rate of $300 per metric ton, that would total more than $10 trillion to completely counteract the estimated 33.5 billion tons of CO2 emissions generated by humans—a tremendous cost, yet one that is still economically viable. But Kurt House, a geoscientist with C12 Energy in Berkeley, California, and his colleagues suggest online today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that slurping a ton of CO2 from the atmosphere may actually be much more expensive.

Among other techniques, the researchers estimated the costs of this form of carbon capture by comparing it with the price of scrubbing other pollutants such as oxides of sulfur and nitrogen from industrial emissions before they leave a power plant’s smokestack. Although pulling CO2 from ambient air rather than a smokestack, where CO2 concentrations can be as high as 12%, would be more difficult, it is technically possible. The problem, House says, is that it’s energetically as well as economically expensive to do so. Capturing CO2 once it’s in the atmosphere takes about four times the energy generated by burning the fossil fuel in the first place, he notes.

Overall, just to capture CO2 would cost at least $1100 per ton, the researchers estimate. That’s a total price tag of at least $33 trillion just to hold atmospheric concentrations of CO2 steady Then, once the gas is captured, even more energy must be expended to compress the gas into a liquid and then dispose of it. And unless the energy needed to drive these processes are carbon-neutral—that is, unless they produce no CO2 emissions of their own—the net result might add CO2 to the atmosphere, not reduce it.

“I agree that this [carbon-capture] process would be expensive now, and I agree that we need clean sources of energy to do this,” says Robert Socolow, a physicist at Princeton University. “Today, we don’t know how to do this at low cost, but there’s work that can be done that might reduce costs significantly,” he adds.

The analytical techniques used by House and his colleagues are perfectly sensible, but there’s a lot of uncertainty associated with them, says David Keith, a physicist at Harvard University. As a result, he notes, costs to pull a ton of CO2 from the air could range anywhere from several thousand dollars to as low as $100. Still, “at this point, carbon capture [from ambient air] is a very conceptual environment,” says Keith, who is also president of a start-up company developing such technology. “To really know what it costs, someone actually has to build it.”

House and his colleagues note that for the near future, it’s probably better to avoid releasing CO2 into the atmosphere in the first place. Between now and 2050, they say, carbon emissions can be captured—using more-developed techniques such as scrubbing the gas before it ever leaves the smokestack, for instance—for less than $300 per ton. But the best approach, many suggest, is simply to find greener sources of energy.

Source: news.sciencemag.org

Flainox was there!

Ecomondo is the biggest expo of green technologies and new lifestyles, a special forum where businesses in the environmental and sustainability sectors can meet institutional stakeholders, trade associations, local/central governments, NGOs and all types of industries and goods manufacturers, to discuss new models of economic growth driven by a focus on innovation, clean technologies and a new approach to urbanization and social contexts.

A dedicated forum for KEY MARKET PLAYERS to meet and share experiences on the green economy.

An unrivalled source of information and training on ecologically sustainable materials and energy efficiency for recycling and waste recovery operators.

An exemplary plan of action for businesses and local bodies that have based their business, competitiveness and quality standards on sustainability.

A single point of interaction to discuss the requirements and best ways of doing ETHICAL, RESPONSIBLE BUSINESS.

Environment Minister Stefania Prestigiacomo attended the opening ceremony with official authorities on Wednesday 9 November.

The sharp rise in the numbers registering to attend is a sign that Italian businesses have embraced the green economy (and the importance of the environment) as an important new challenge for their business and also a means of gaining an added competitive edge.

There has also been a positive response from the green equipment.

INTEXUSA INTELLIGENT INNOVATION FOR SUSTAINABLE TEXTILE PRODUCTION. FLAINOX HAS PARTICIPATED TO THE PROJECT.

Optimisation of dyeing processes with UltraSonic Technology and its integration with automatic on-line control

The usage of auxiliares (dyestuffs, solvents,…) must be NOT necessary, where it’s possible, and not dangerous if used.
GREEN CHEMISTRY Energy and water comsumption MUST be reduced.

Wool fibre at FE-SEM, Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscope, before and after UStreatment.

New research from UC Davis scientists reveals how useful a self-cleaning fabric – more specifically, cotton – can be for many professions. The fabric is able to fight off bacteria as a result of its production of hydrogen peroxide.

“When we put the chemical on the fabric and then put it into the light, hydrogen peroxide is produced,” said Gang Sun, professor of textiles and clothing at UC Davis.

According to Sun, the chemical he and his colleagues used is called 2-anthraquinone carboxylic acid, which is able to bond chemically to fabrics. He said that one of the advantages of this chemical is that it can be put into the dyes that are used in clothing, allowing for an easier method of incorporation of the chemical with the fabric.

“When the molecules in the chemical absorb different electromagnetic wavelengths, they become excited and jump to becoming excited molecules, which allows for interaction with oxygen,” Sun said.

He said that it is this interaction in which molecules become excited as a result of absorbing visible light that produces the bacteria-fighting effect.

“The fact that it is environmentally-friendly and doesn’t need anything but light means we can do this to other polymers as well,” Sun said.

He believes that there could be many more applications for this chemical, even though durability of the chemical on the fabrics is uncertain. One of the concerns is that scientists do not know how much light the fabric can be exposed to before the chemical’s effects begin to dwindle.

“We tested it under certain conditions, but not all. One of problems is that every time you expose it to light, the durability and efficacy may be reduced,” Sun said.

Ning Liu, a doctoral researcher in Sun’s group, said that the efficacy of the chemical could decline at a faster rate for people who work outside.

“It is expected that the chemical will lose its function faster for people who work outside because sunlight is much more powerful,” Liu said.

Even though the chemical is expected to lose its function faster in outside environments, it is also the place where the chemical is expected to produce its best effects.

“Normal indoor lighting works, but the chemical works better when outside because the chemical becomes more powerful as a result of the sunlight,” Liu said.

In terms of the fabric being washable, Liu said that the fabric could be washed without worry, since the chemical is bound to the fabric.

She believes that this self-cleaning fabric can be of particular use for the medical and agricultural industries.

“It is advantageous for farmers who come in contact with pesticides, but also for medical professionals,” Liu said.

According to the California Department of Public Health, Healthcare-Associated Infections (HAIs) often plague patients and hospitals.

“[HAIs] are the most common complication of hospital care, occurring in approximately one in every 20 patients,” states the California Department of Public Health website.

According to Liu, some other good uses of the self-cleaning fabric might be as curtains that surround beds in hospitals or even as the fabric in the living room couch – something which could prove especially useful for households with children.

“It has many applications – we’re not sure what the best fit is,” Liu said.

With Liu’s estimate of the self-cleaning fabric becoming commercially available in three to five years, it is possible that the public may receive an added method of protection against infections.

ERIC C. LIPSKY can be reached science@theaggie.org.

The course aims to introduce the participants into the wonderful world of natural dyes will use the historical dyeing plants dried and wild plants collected in the territory; dye yarn and fabric in various fibers: wool, silk, cotton, linen, etc.

we’ll see how the color will change with the variation of mordent, the pH of the bath.

will dye also in INDIGO.

Stefano Panconesi, more than thirty years dealing with natural dyes: courses, participation in conferences, consulting in the textile industry.

INTRODUCTORY COURSE ON NATURAL DYEING

FRIDAY 4 nov

4 p.m. Course presentation – A brief history of natural dyeing over the centuries; Today’s market for natural dyes
8 p.m. Dinner
9:30 p.m. Video on natural dyes in the world

SATURDAY 5 nov

8 a.m. Breakfast
9 a.m. Preparation of the fibres to be dyed: wool, cotton, silk.
Dyeing with COCCINIGL to get red with WELD to get yellow
1 p.m. Lunch
2:30 p.m. Preparation of the fibres to be dyed: wool, cotton, silk
Dyeing with COSMOS to get brown with LOGWOOD to get purple
8 p.m. Dinner
9:30 p.m. Video on indigo dyeing in the world

SUNDAY 6 nov

8 a.m. Breakfast
9:30 a.m. Preparation of the fibres to be dyed: wool, cotton, silk
Double dyeing with colour modification through addition of salt, change in pH, etc.
11:30 a.m. Creation of a colour chart with the previously dyed sampled
1 p.m. Lunch

Fees for the course

Association 2011 € 15,00
Course Fee € 200,00
Board and lodging €100,00 in twin-bed room

ASSOCIAZIONE CASA CLEMENTINA
via Italia, 6 13843 Pettinengo (BIELLA)
Phone +39 348 3326570
casaclementina@alice.it

In the Antarctic, essentially complete removal of lower-stratospheric ozone currently results in an ozone hole every year, whereas in the Arctic, ozone loss is highly variable and has until now been much more limited. Here we demonstrate that chemical ozone destruction over the Arctic in early 2011 was – for the first time in the observational record – comparable to that in the Antarctic ozone hole.

Unusually long-lasting cold conditions in the Arctic lower stratosphere led to persistent enhancement in ozone-destroying forms of chlorine and to unprecedented ozone loss, which exceeded 80 per cent over 18-20 kilometres altitude. Our results show that Arctic ozone holes are possible even with temperatures much milder than those in the Antarctic. We cannot at present predict when such severe Arctic ozone depletion may be matched or exceeded.

Or maybe it’s a taste of excitement, because it seems entirely possible that the trailer-truck-size machine that he’s leaning up against is actually going to work.

“It’s amazing to see all this talk and paper get turned into hardware,” he says. “I really love it.”

Keith is on a patch of blacktop on the campus of the University of Calgary, in Alberta, Canada, where until very recently he has been a professor. Now his academic hat is Harvard, where he is both a professor of public policy and a professor of applied physics. His hard hat is a little start-up company, called Carbon Engineering, housed on the Calgary campus. And that company is building a machine that can actually suck carbon dioxide from the air.

The technology at the core of the device is not new. “People have done this for a long time,” he says. “There were commercial processes that took CO₂ out of the air, in fact, in the 1950s, so there’s no mystery that we can do it.”

But those companies were just extracting small quantities of carbon dioxide for industrial purposes. Keith is after a much more important question, one that is universal for anyone trying to develop a technology: Can it be done affordably on a grand scale?

“So our interest is in building full-scale commercial systems that would take tens of thousands of tons — or more — of CO₂ out of the air,” he says.

‘Not As Hard As You Think’

Taking on climate change is in part personal for Keith. This wiry man has skied across many hundreds of miles of the rapidly melting Arctic, so he knows more than most people what’s at stake.

Getting this project to work is also an intellectual challenge. “It’s fun to go after problems where there’s a wide public consensus in one direction that is sort of thin, where people haven’t thought about it very much,” he says.

Mr Forrest, chief executive of the iron ore miner Fortescue Metals, held up China as an exemplary economy that was turning its back on communism by lowering resources taxes.

”In China right now there’s a fierce debate about how to lower their resources tax to encourage the mining industry,” he told an ”axe the tax” protest before a speech by the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd.

”I ask you which communist is turning capitalist and which capitalist is turning communist?”

Analysts in China were perplexed by Mr Forrest’s comments, as China is in fact taking steps towards imposing a resources tax, which Beijing sees as a means of conserving resources, slowing environmental destruction and rebalancing an economy that delivers bloated corporate profits at the expense of households.

“We didn’t have any taxes before. It was tiny, like 0.3 per cent on some resources, and now people are starting to think we should charge,” said Huang Yiping, professor of economics at the China Centre for Economic Research at Peking University. “A resources tax will definitely be imposed in the next five years.”

China Daily, the Communist Party’s main English-language newspaper, has held up Australia as an example for China to follow.

“A hint to this nation’s policymakers: if they are looking for guidelines to the long-awaited tax reform, take a good look at Australia’s latest plan to increase worker pension funds with a new tax on resource projects,” the paper said on May 26.

On June 1 China’s unveiled its first resources tax, at a rate of 5 per cent on fossil fuels in Xinjiang, as a way of retaining some of the region’s mineral wealth in local hands.

Since then a vice-premier, Li Keqiang, has advocated a national resources tax in a speech published in Seeking Truth, the Communist Party’s leading theory magazine.

Officials have hinted that Xinjiang will be a pilot for a resource taxes that will gradually be imposed on all mineral resources.

Chinese industry leaders are lobbying officials to obstruct the proposed tax, as they are in Australia.

Zeng Shaojin, vice-president of the  China Mining Association, said taxes on iron ore should be reduced to stimulate domestic suppliers and reduce dependence on imports.

The vice secretary of the China Iron & Steel Association (CISA), Qi Xiangdong, said he had lobbied government to reduce iron ore taxes.

Mr Forrest’s comments yesterday were not the first time an Australian mining billionaire has levelled the “communist” charge. Last week the maverick Queenslander Clive Palmer said the Treasurer, Wayne Swan, was a “communist” and a “goose”.

Nor is it the first time Mr Forrest has got China upside down when it has suited his interests. Last August he said CISA had the power to implement a vague investment deal.

”CISA was once viewed as a dog with a lot of bark. I think it is now viewed across China as a dog with a lot of bark and bite,” said Mr Forrest, after agreeing with CISA to a slightly larger price cut of 35 per cent on the condition of up to $US6 billion in finance from an unnamed Chinese institution.

One of Mr Forrest’s own advisers told the BusinessDay at the time: “Mr Forrest does not understand China – the China Iron & Steel Association has nothing to do with Chinese financial institutions.”

The proposed investment never materialised, and CISA has been ignored or overruled in China on every substantial policy matter since.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/business/now-china-mulls-tax-on-resources-20100609-xwwn.html#ixzz1bDFg7Lfw

Right now, 10 countries — including the U.S., China and Russia — are responsible for 80 percent of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions. The United States is the world’s second largest emitter (China ranks no. 1), sending around 5.8 million metric tons of CO2 into the atmosphere a year. That’s the equivalent to a year’s worth of greenhouse gas emissions from 1.1 billion average passenger vehicles. Below, a look at today’s big CO2 emitters — and projected emissions giants in 2030.

Countries With Top Coal Reserves

Across the globe, coal reserves are the most carbon-intensive energy resource.

Source: World Resources Institute’s Climate Analysis Indicators Tool, 2009re

Atmospheric CO2 Concentrations

Concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are much higher than they were in the industrial era, and have been increasing steadily over the last half century. The yearly dips represent seasonal changes.

Source: Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO)

CO2 Emissions Compared With GDP

About half the electricity used in the United States comes from burning coal. China depends on coal even more. Burning coal puts out more greenhouse gases than does any other single source of electricity.

Source: World Resources Institute’s Climate Analysis Indicators Tool, 2009; CIA World Factbook

For more information and details please read the original article on NPR.org: http://tinyurl.com/62htd75

The company’s extraordinary 3D graphics can take you right into the heart of the machine, for views it’s not even possible to achieve with the actual machine.

With a 65% market share, Oerlikon Neumag is the leading global supplier of systems for BCF carpet yarn, for example, and its latest S+ brings together all the benefits of previous technologies. Optimisation measures, however, mean production speeds can be dramatically increased.

Finding the niches that huge operations like Oerlikon can’t really fill, meanwhile, is the UK’s Fibre Extrusion Technology (FET).

“We are a provider of bespoke solutions, with know-how in respect of equipment design, process technology and assembly,” says FET managing director Richard Slack. “The fields we work in involve the production of high value materials in low volumes and we work closely in collaboration with both fibre suppliers and manufacturers on research projects, process development and technical feasibility studies and pilot batch production for product trials. This gives us a head start over competitors when projects are ready for successful scale-up, in building the machines and providing on-site installation and commissioning.”

FET also has a track record in the field of bicomponent and tricomponent meltspinning and has also adapted the meltblowing process specifically for biomedical applications. This has led to the production of resorbable nonwovens for the first time and the technology is proving capable of processing other high end polymers for technical and functional nonwoven material applications.

Blue Carbon
A cotton t-shirt can produce up to fifty times its own weight in CO2 emissions, says Italy’s Flainox, a company taking its environmental obligations very seriously.

A commissioned study has shown that the Blue Carbon-certified manufacturer of dyeing machines has halved the CO2 emissions at its Biella manufacturing plant over a one-year period, representing a 29% CO2e reduction per kg of fabric eventually produced on its machines and $1.6 million in savings over a 15-year period.

In addition, the carbon footprint of the company’s latest Universal NRG dyeing machine over a life cycle of 15 years has been shown to reduce CO2 emissions by 35%, translating to a cost reduction of $2.4 million over a 15-year usage period. The machine pictured here has been sold to Brazilian company Lupo.

Water and energy savings are also the keys to Xorella’s latest range of EnviroTec steaming and conditioning solutions.

Conditioning and steaming machines of all makes commonly use vacuum pumps based on the old fashioned water ring technology to evacuate air and steam from their vessels.

The various vacuum cycles which have to be conducted make the use of water for cooling and sealing them an important cost factor.

Xorella’s XO-EcoPac employs a water-free vacuum system is on a high tech, low consumption dry vacuum pump, demanding less than half the installed power of conventional water ring pumps.

There is usually an enormous amount of water wasted in a conditioning process and in respect of high temperature steaming for heat-setting it’s even higher, due to the fact that more steam has to be evacuated and a final vacuum for drying purposes is carried out.

XO-EcoPac saves 100% of cooling water which can lead to huge economical savings throughout the year.

Finally a mention for a new company CU4motion, which has developed a fully automatic needle exchanger based on sophisticated software. It is capable of scanning needleboards and replacing the needles anywhere this is required, as well as the storage of needle bed designs and the optimisation of needling patterns. In needlepunching, the replacement of needless is an extremely time consuming job, not to mention costly, so CU4motion’s system will meet a real need in the industry.

source: ITMA

In the north of England, they used to scour the streets on their horse and carts in search of old clothes. This was in the 1970s, when that region still had a very vital textile industry. As a kid I was happy to trade my family’s old cast-offs for a balloon.

Now the rag and bone men are back, and in fact, can be considered ‘eco warriors’ – at the cutting edge of sustainable thinking.

Recycling is big business, and Italian textile machinery builders – particularly those in the traditionally textile-intensive area of Biella – have perfected the processes for converting virtually any fibrous waste into textile products for a number of industrial end-uses.

WoJo, for example, is a new high-quality fabric for interior design made possible by technology developed by Dell’Orco and Villani.

The recycled fabric is a combination of 70% New Zealand Laneve wool and 30% used jute coffee sacks and was recently unveiled on highly-stylised chairs at Starbucks in the UK.

WoJo fabric is now used in a range of seating and reflects the coffee chain’s professed commitment to environmental stewardship.

Dell’Orco & Villani has a long history of manufacturing textile waste recycling equipment and company chief Sergio Dell’Orco, along with his US partner and sales rep Frank J. Levy, had already developed a breakthrough process for the separation of carpet face fibre from polypropylene backing. Their specially-formed company – Post Consumer Carpet Processing Technologies (PCC) – received the World Energy Globe Award in recognition of this.

Each line of PCC machinery can reclaim up to 30 million pounds of used carpet annually. The equipment separates oil-based fibres from carpet backing so that both materials can be reused. Other Italian companies such as Cormatex, Bombi and Bematic are now actively involved in such projects and report major interest in their technologies here in Barcelona.

It’s a given that the production of industrial goods will always have some kind of impact on the environment, I guess, but it’s very clear that the majority of the textile machinery builders here at ITMA – as well as the suppliers of chemicals, fibres and auxilliary products – are now taking their obligation to minimising this very seriously.

Prior to the show, I was involved in the production of ‘The Green Guide to ITMA’, but I’m now aware that such a guide can only touch the surface of things. As an industry leader, for example, Oerlikon is striving to rationalise its entire technology platform through its e-save programme which aims for the optimisation of all raw materials and a marked reduction in emissions via process efficiency.

Chemicals leader Clariant, meanwhile, continues to surprise with its new products.

Today, the company introduced its Blue Magic formulation for cotton and other cellulosic fibres which can reduce water consumption and energy by up to 50%, while halving the process time required. Clariant’s innovations are well worth investigating here in Barcelona.

And from Spain, Jeanologia is a smart young company which is achieving great success with its laser finishing system for denim. As opposed to the conventional sandblasting technique which has been maligned by environmental groups like Greenpeace, the company’s Twin HS laser technology provides the vintage look while at the same time cutting power consumption by an estimated 62% and reducing the time to achieve such effects by 55%.

source: ITMA

“To our knowledge, this is a breakthrough for textile-manufacturing plants, giving the smartphones that people are already carrying in their pockets,” says managing director Richard Armitage. “It allows mill managers to browse real-time production data, diagnose delays and get the reports they need without even having to find a PC. The screens are closely modelled on our industry-leading Plant Explorer software for PCs, which will be familiar to all our software users around the world.”

“People are really going for the slick response of the new app, and they just need to tune in to their plant’s local Wi-Fi network to get online,” adds US sales director Tony Webber. “This can even be done while on the road if the plant has a suitable VPN access point.”

Savings in energy, water and waste – this is clearly the key theme of ITMA 2011 here in Barcelona. The BLUecoMPETENCE initiative by the textile machinery branch of Germany’s VDMA, for example, is all about ecological design and energy efficiency, and one company responding to it in a big way is Trützschler.The new Trützschler Nonwovens Streamliner drum dryer, for example, achieves much higher specific evaporation capacities than has previously been possible.

“The Streamliner’s optimised airflow with minimal pressure loss is combined with an optimised fresh air based on temperature-dependent density changes,” explains marketing manager Eric Schinnerling. “This and the advanced heating system ensure an optimised flow technology, while energy efficiency can be further increased by external air treatment and heat exchange. On today’s advanced standard-width spunlacing lines for nonwovens such as wipes, the company has calculated that as a result of the 30% less energy that this dryer makes possible, average savings of €410,000 a year can be achieved.In drylaid nonwovens production meanwhile, the crosslapper stage of a line has turned into something of a bottleneck due to the high speeds of cards at one end and the bonding and winding systems at the other. Trützschler has aimed to remedy this with the development of its EKLB439 crosslapper. A number of new patents have been secured on its design, based on both new web guidance elements and the mastery of the dynamic factors influencing both process and machine.
Not so long ago, virtually every machinery development at an ITMA was about running speeds. Now it’s all about manufacturing efficiency. Nothing’s changed that much really, since faster speeds obviously mean greater productivity within the same working shift or timeframe.

This is all well and good when considering 24/7 commodity production, but here in Europe things no longer work that way.
Somewhere between the race for ever-higher machine speeds and today’s emphasis on sustainability, the goal-posts changed.
Short lots, ‘just in time’ and niche production, processing flexibility and instant response have become the keys to success for the majority of European manufacturers.
Efficient drives to minimise the number of mechanical parts and automation and software tools, continue to allow tremendous gains to be made in this respect.
A neat example of software progress is the new Plant Explorer app specially made for Android tablets and smartphones by the UK’s Adaptive Control.
“To our knowledge, this is a breakthrough for textile-manufacturing plants, giving the smartphones that people are already carrying in their pockets,” says managing director Richard Armitage. “It allows mill managers to browse real-time production data, diagnose delays and get the reports they need without even having to find a PC. The screens are closely modelled on our industry-leading Plant Explorer software for PCs, which will be familiar to all our software users around the world.”

“People are really going for the slick response of the new app, and they just need to tune in to their plant’s local Wi-Fi network to get online,” adds US sales director Tony Webber. “This can even be done while on the road if the plant has a suitable VPN access point.”
The app can be downloaded free from the Android marketplace and runs on any Android smartphone or tablet, version 1.5 or later.
An example of advanced automation, meanwhile, can be found at the tiny stand of CU4motion in Hall 2 – I’ll write more about this new company tomorrow.
In opening the IFAI’s Advanced Textiles Europe 2011 conference here at ITMA this afternoon, Greggory D. Crouch, the US Consul General for Barcelona, revealed an interesting fact – only 1% of all companies manufacturing in the USA export anything at all.

Of that 1%, almost 60% of companies only export to one other country. As far as textiles are concerned, Canada, Mexico and Honduras are the leading export destinations for US goods.
This may be about to change, however, following President Obama’s 2010 National Export Initiative (NEI) which is seeking to double the amount of US goods sold to other countries in the next five years – the first such presidentially-led drive.

source: ITMA

“Lipotec has great expertise in advanced active ingredients and the encapsulation of cosmetics,” said Mr Roesch. “We have combined their cosmetic expertise with our textile technology to create a product that contributes and provides cosmetic wellness effects without effort on the part of the end user. It’s a win-win development for textile manufacturers and brands and creates almost limitless opportunities for added value textile products.”

“This is more than just a standard heat recovery system,” explains the company’s vice-president of sales and marketing Jochen Stillger. “Its unique selling point is the automatic cleaning control which means the machine doesn’t have to be stopped at all. More than this, the rotating cleaning wheel adjusts automatically to the temperature of the machine, deciding when cleaning is required and to what degree, so the mill no longer has to rely on the operator.”

How does anyone ever get anything done here in Barcelona – especially at the weekend?
Normal rules such as when to go to bed don’t seem to apply and there is always so much to do and see – especially with this ITMA coinciding with the weekend’s Festa de La Mercé, in honour of the city’s patron saint.
Last night – along with around 70,000 other fans – I was privileged to see the Barcelona versus Athletico Madrid football match at the spectacular Nou Camp stadium. Messi’s majestic hat-trick will probably go down in the history books and Barca were showboating throughout, against a far inferior side who never kept the ball for long.
Despite the sporadically heavy rain, there was a sense of spectacle and ritual that made the event feel more like being in an outdoor cathedral than a football ground.
Perhaps not surprisingly then – and because it’s Sunday as well – the ITMA has been a little quieter today.
This morning, chemicals and dyestuffs leader Clariant gave the latest of what are daily presentations on its latest innovations – the company is launching no less than 25 new products here at the show.
Dyeing specialist Helmut Sieber and head of marketing Rainer Roesch introduced Lanasyn Flavine F-5G as the first major innovation in acid dyes in 100 years. As such, it brings a vivid brightness to fabrics, without compromising on wet fastness.

Lanasyn Flavine F-5G builds on the company’s Nylosan range for wool and polyamide without the heavy metals that have been required to achieve such colour intensity with acid dyes in the
past. Among other interesting introductions from Clariant is Quiospheres, a high strength, high performance effect for the new and growing field of ‘cosmetotextiles’, that can be applied to any fabric via microencapsulation and has been developed in a partnership with Lipotec SA.“Lipotec has great expertise in advanced active ingredients and the encapsulation of cosmetics,” said Mr Roesch. “We have combined their cosmetic expertise with our textile technology to create a product that contributes and provides cosmetic wellness effects without effort on the part of the end user. It’s a win-win development for textile manufacturers and brands and creates almost limitless opportunities for added value textile products.”
The product is available in two versions – Quiospheres Moist provides hydrating and moisturising properties and Quiospheres Slim firmness and wellness.
The application technology of the microcapsules to the fabric is highly controlled and they are distributed evenly across the fabric. They are also protected and unaffected by the impact of handling, mechanical stress and high temperature throughout the production process of the fabric.

Sill in the area of dyeing and finishing, Germany’s Monforts reports tremendous interest in its Eco Booster HRC for stenters here at the show.

“This is more than just a standard heat recovery system,” explains the company’s vice-president of sales and marketing Jochen Stillger. “Its unique selling point is the automatic cleaning control which means the machine doesn’t have to be stopped at all. More than this, the rotating cleaning wheel adjusts automatically to the temperature of the machine, deciding when cleaning is required and to what degree, so the mill no longer has to rely on the operator.”

Another key Monforts introduction is the Eco Applicator for applying chemicals to fabrics. Instead of a conventional padder, application is by roller, which means much less energy is required in the subsequent drying stage.
“Saving energy anywhere it’s possible is driving developments at the moment,” said Monforts vice-president of marketing Klaus Heinrichs, “because there’s only one way energy prices are going and that’s up.”
Mr Heinrichs added that the company has so far been pleasantly surprised at the number and quality of visitors to its stand here in Barcelona – and even on a festive Sunday.

source: ITMA

“The massive presence of Italian companies here in Barcelona bears witness to the vitality of our sector in spite of the profound uncertainty influencing the global economic landscape” said Sandro Salmoiraghi, President of ACIMIT, the Italian Association of Textile Machinery Manufacturers.

According to ACIMIT, global demand for textile machinery has slowed down somewhat after having closed 2010 with increased production and exports of over 20%, and with a similar positive start to 2011.

“Global growth appears to have hit a snag” continued Mr Salmoiraghi, “and this downturn is across the board and stronger than expected, even for emerging countries.“

At ITMA 2011, Italian machinery companies are emphasizing sustainability and efficiency in their products. Also, ACIMIT presents to the specialized press the details of the Sustainable Technologies project.

The Sustainable Technologies project aims to sensitize ACIMIT’s associated members on the sustainability of technology solutions proposed to customers through the creation of a green label. Realized with the technical support of the engineering firm D’Appolonia, the project is said to benefit from the cooperation of the European project Nu-Wave.

According to ACIMIT, at ITMA 2011, Italian machinery manufacturers who have joined the project can illustrate to their customers the benefits derived from the insertion of machines bearing such a green label.

Both Italy’s participation at ITMA 2011 and the Sustainability Technologies project are supported by the Italian Government through the Ministry of Economic Development.

Overview of Italian textile machinery industry

In Italy, there are about 300 companies who produce textile machines and related accessories, for a total of about 12,400 employees.

In 2010, the value of Italian exports was 1.9 billion euros, about 79% of the total production (2.4 billion euros).

At a world level Italy is one of the main suppliers of textile machinery together with Germany, Japan and Switzerland. The Italian market share on the world exports of textile machinery was 11%.

Italian exports of textile machines are directed mainly in Asia (50% of the total) and Europe (31%).

The biggest contributions to the Italian exports of textile machinery came from China, for a turnover of 426 million euros (27% of total sales), Turkey (123 million euros), India (112 million euros) and Brazil (75 million euros).

Source: ATA Editorial Team

In an interesting presentation at today’s Research and Education platform, Dr Simone Gramsch of the Fraunhofer Institute of Industrial Mathematics spoke of her work on the optimisation of needlepunched nonwovens.
Using advanced algorithms, she and her team have developed software to calculate the ultimate positioning of needles in a needle board, based on a whole range of influential parameters. The results of such work have been adapted by Autefa – until recently part of Oerlikon Neumag – one of the key manufacturers of nonwovens machinery situated in Hall 2.
Here’s another bit of maths – nonwovens will account for at least a quarter, and maybe as much as a third, of all global textile production by 2050.
This was a prediction made recently by Friedrich Weninger, president of the Austrian Manmade Fibres Institute at the recent 50th Dornbirn Man-Made Fibers Congress and there is certainly a buzz about Hall 2.
In a dominant position there is Dilo, a company always keen to showcase the excellence of German engineering at ITMA shows. A full Dilo nonwoven line with a width of 3.5 metres is in operation, consisting of two bale openers, a MultiCard, a DLSC crosslapper and needleloom, with new innovation including the Profiline CV1A web compensation system. The line is capable of speeds of up to 160 metres a minute.Also attracting a lot of attention is Australian company V-Lap with its fully-operational pilot line for the production of vertically-lapped products. Leading car manufacturers including Ford, General Motors, Mitsubishi and Toyota are now taking advantage of the tremendous properties of vertically lapped nonwoven fabrics – and the benefits are not just confined to the automotive sector.
“The key advantage of the products made with our technology over traditional high loft nonwovens is the true vertical orientation of the fibres,” explains managing director Jason Cooper. “This provides a more uniform product and greater resilience and recovery from compression for specific applications. And most importantly, it allows for reduced weight at a comparable thickness and or sound acoustic rating.”
V-Lap nonwovens can be equally effective solutions in other industrial areas such as filtration, construction and the furniture markets.
In filtration, the unique structure of vertically orientated webs improves both coarse particle holding on the surface and depth holding of the finer particles, resulting in a filter with a very low pressure drop and excellent dust holding capacity.
In mattress construction, meanwhile, they can be used with strong scrims for spring pocket insulator materials, and the same machine can manufacture replacement mattress topping materials which are much more foam-like than conventional crosslapped polyesters. The improved compression and recovery does not compromise the soft feel of the material, while the ability to provide improved bulk without weight – sometimes by as much as 20% – provides for much more air circulation and a ‘cooler’ feel than standard polyester separators.
Another interesting new technology in Hall 2 is the nanofibre system being promoted by South Korea’s Toptec and developed at Shinshu University in Japan.
Toptec is manufacturing both laboratory and industrial-sized lines to produce very impressive nanowebs and a 1.8 metre wide Toptec line can run at speeds of up to 80 metres a minute, says Dr Ick-Soo Kim, of Shinshi University.
Often used in combination with conventional nonwoven webs, nanofibre layers are opening up a range of new markets with end-uses including high efficiency filters, storage membranes for lithium ion batteries, protective clothing layers, advanced medical products and more.
The future success of nonwovens, however, will not be solely due to innovative technology, but also as a result of the basic shift in fibre consumption that’s likely to occur over the next few decades – and specifically, what’s been called (for as long as I can remember now, although only very recently actually emerging) ‘the cellulosic gap’.
As cotton prices continue to rise, viscose is becoming a rapidly growing market, and this is a situation many ITMA exhibitors are now addressing with their latest technology developments. State of the art viscose fibre manufacturing plants, such as those run by ITMA exhibitor Lenzing, allow the almost-carbon neutral production of fibres. Pulp is derived from trees which embed CO2, and water consumption is only a fiftieth of that used in cotton farming.
Viscose fibres are also eminently suited to many nonwoven applications, not least as a result of their absorbency, and together fibre and process make a formidable team.

source: ITMA

He revealed that from a retail perspective, environmental issues should be on the agenda all the way up the textile supply chain. “Machinery innovation is an important part of this whole process,” he told delegates.

“Walking around ITMA I see that the building blocks are already in place for machine builders to help create a more sustainable future for the global textile industry,” said Richardson, “The next step is to move towards finding collaborative way for this sector to work together if we are to take this a whole lot further.”

Clearly, the Patagonia man was referring to some sort of standard for textile machinery industry that can identify technology which is ‘environmentally friendly’. Yet this is already happening!

John Easton from dyestuff producer Dystar, also speaking at the round-table summed up this issue very neatly when he said “which way are water and energy costs going in the future? It’s a simple calculation to make!”

Ultimately, of course, this type of new technology also means cost savings too … but only if the manufacturer is prepared to invest in the latest technology. So it’s good to see that at this ITMA, and for the first time, the latest environmental developments have been outlined in the new Green Guide to ITMA (Hall 3, B152) … a free 80 page guide book for visitors.

Hidden gem creates buzz

At ITMA it’s always nice to see innovation especially when it’s hidden away in a booth within a booth. That’s what we’ve noticed at Mayer & Cie (Hall 3, B138), where the German company has stashed away a unique circular knitting machine that also spins the yarn before it gets knitted. Benefits of the machine are said to be both cost and energy savings plus the ability to produce uniform fabrics with low spirality.

where the German company has stashed away a unique circular knitting machine that also spins the yarn before it gets knitted. Benefits of the machine are said to be both cost and energy savings plus the ability to produce uniform fabrics with low spirality.

Dubbed ‘Spinit’ the new knitting machine is claimed to be a world first although we understand that rivals Pai Lung (Hall 3, B132) and Terrot (Hall 3, A161) are also looking closely at developing this type of new innovative solution.

source: ITMA

Former world diplomat Mr Annan, of course, is now an advocate for sustainable business practice, which at this year’s 60th anniversary ITMA can be considered the key driver for machine and process innovation.

ACIMIT and the VDMA, for example – as the respective textile machinery trade associations for Italy and Germany – are by no means unique in emphasising the ability of their member companies to develop processes, technologies and machinery that are efficient from an energy standpoint and provide a low environmental impact.

“The primary goal of our associated manufacturers must be that of supplying sustainable technologies resulting in production cycles that are more responsible and attentive to consumption,” says Sandro Salmoiraghi, president of ACIMIT. ACIMIT is launching its new Green Label here in Barcelona as a self-declaration of the carbon footprint and specific technologies behind machines and production cycles.

Similarly, the VDMA is introducing its BLUecoMPETENCE initiative for ecological design and energy efficiency.

“Rising energy and raw material prices are obliging textile manufacturers around the world to optimise their cost structures and processes,” says

the organisation’s chairman Fritz P. Mayer. “Here at ITMA, the German textile machinery manufacturers are presenting advanced technical solutions offering excellent value for money through production increases and savings in both energy and material.”

Tomorrow at the show, the Sustainable Textile Leaders Roundtable, organised in a co-operation with the Textile Exchange will be taking place at Conference Centre 4, Room 4.1 from 3.30pm, will also focus on sustainable innovations, machinery advances and trends for the future that will impact all players in the textile and garment making value chain.

“Textile sustainability enables the entire value chain to find cost savings and production efficiencies and pass those savings on to customers, while reducing the impact of textile production on people and the environment,” says Textile Exchange senior director LaRhea Pepper.

It’s difficult to single out individual companies contributing to this progress, but Swiss dyeing and finishing machinery specialist Benninger (in Hall 7 at stand A134), for example, is now providing lifecycle carbon footprint assessments of the textiles manufactured on its equipment.

A special emphasis is also being placed on energy saving solutions and environmental protection by Germany’s Monforts (in Hall 6 at stand C106). This company’s new Montex 8000 stenter has an ‘intelligent’ heat recovery module which can adjust the exhaust air volume and air temperature to ensure it is always working at its highest efficiency.

Another Swiss company, Xorella (in Hall H1 at stand A104), is making water and energy savings the keys to its latest  range of EnviroTec steaming and conditioning solutions.

“Despite the fact that in certain regions water availability and cost is not yet a problem, customers are becoming aware of the importance of making savings,” says the company’s head of sales Patrick Zuppiger.
Greener textile dyestuffs and chemicals, of course, can be just as critical as machinery to sustainable processing, especially in the economical use of water and reducing the amount wasted in dyeing and finishing processes.

New innovations and challenges will be addressed at the Textile Dyestuff and Chemical Industry Leaders, Forum which is taking place in Conference Centre 5, Room 5.3, between 9.15am and 12.30pm on the mornings of Sunday (25th) and Monday (26th).

source: ITMA

http://www.flainox.com/blog/profile/video-multimedia/

The Commission is working closely with the Member States and is committed to a smooth transition for registry account holders.

More information and the exact timetable, including the starting date for the suspension of access to registry accounts, will be communicated on this website during the second half of October.

Read more:

Registries
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NRG: Rotary machine at three compartments for dyeing and high speed centrifuging of garments, socks, hosiery and seamless. Since January 2010 “NRG” has been obtained the certification to ISO 14064 and PASS 2050 for mitigation of CO2 and GHG emission (-34,3%) and in May 2011 has been approved by ACIMIT/“Nu-Wave”, a European project for energy savings.

In fact water and steam consumption for a complete process and per dyed/kg. have been diminished up to 60% while dyes and chemicals -12÷15%. The end-user recovers productivity and competitiveness in the respect of quality standards.

E-Color: Open pocket rotary machine for dyeing, washing and high speed centrifuging of garments, socks, hosiery and seamless. It works, according to substrate and materials, up to 50 R.P.M. dyeing speed and at variable levels.

Two injectors granting uniformity of bath diffusion and preserving from pilling sensitive garments even at short liquor ratio’s. Recently E-Color as well has obtained the Green Label in the PROJECT ACIMIT/ “Nu-Wave”. Unloading is automatic by means of front tilting.

NRG-HT: Rotary machine at three compartments for dyeing and high speed centrifuging of garments, socks, hosiery and seamless. It is constructed to PED rules for pressure vessels and permits to reach high working temperature 135°C. (on request 145°C.) to dye 100% polyester.

ATC-ATM/HT: High thickness equipment for static dyeing of hosiery in drawers or bags, upgraded to dye hanks (skeins). It is build to reach a pressure of 0,45 BAR (108°C.) and, on request, is supplied for pressurization up to 1,2 BAR corresponding to a max working temperature of 120°C.

ITMA – the International Exhibition of Textile Machinery – has been held every four years since 1951. It is the world’s largest international textile and garment machinery exhibition, an event which is owned by CEMATEX. ITMA is recognised as the Olympics of the textile and garment machinery industry.

Flainox srl

Source: fibre2fashion.com

The one that comes most readily to mind is the most recent, the Cretaceous, which ended 65 million years ago and took out the dinosaurs. But there were four before that–the Ordovician, Devonian, Permian, and Triassic–that did as much damage to the tree of life, or, in some cases even more, than the one that ended the reign of the Tyrannosaurus rex and his ilk.

I’m thinking about them for two reasons. The first is a preliminary report that came out in June from the International Programme on the State of the Ocean. This is a group of the planet’s top marine scientists who are compiling a comprehensive report on ocean health to be finished in 2012. Their initial findings, widely picked up by news organizations around the world, were grim.

The ocean’s health is in a “critical” state, the scientists found, the direct result of human activities. It’s so dire that we’ve actually begun to alter the basic chemistry of the ocean. That matters, the scientists said, because the ocean is one of the “key operating systems” of the planet. When we start to damage it, we’re hurting the planet’s ability to support life as it exists now. Put more starkly, if all life on land were to die tomorrow, life in the ocean would be fine. But if life in the ocean perished, so would life on land. Terrestrial species, including you and me, are dependent on life in the ocean for our own survival. Marine plankton produce every second breath of oxygen you breathe, to give just one example of the reasons we need to pay attention to what’s going on in the ocean.

The scientists pointed the finger at several human activities, each of which is getting far worse far more quickly than scientists had predicted. Some are obvious. We take out too many fish. We trawl across the ocean floor with heavy rigs leaving a wake of destruction, and then we pollute the waters when we take oil and gas out of the seabed. We dump sewage and industrial wastes into the waters creating dead zones with little or no oxygen, and introduce toxic new species to parts of the ocean that have no defenses against them.

One of the big threats they identify isn’t so obvious. That’s the phenomenon known as ocean acidification, a result of the high-carbon world we’ve created here on Earth. As we burn the fossilized remains of plants and animals that lived millions of years ago–coal, oil and gas–we’re releasing the ancient carbon stored in their bodies into today’s atmosphere in the form of carbon-dioxide gas. That’s why the concentration of CO2 has risen from 280 parts per million (ppm) (just under 0.03%) before the industrial revolution to 392 ppm today (just under 0.04%).

A level that high is unusual. We know it hasn’t been above 300 ppm for 20 million years.

And it would be far higher except that the ocean is absorbing a great deal of that ancient carbon, roughly a third of what’s been emitted since we started burning fossil fuels for industry about a quarter of a millennium ago. But while the gas is inert (if heat-trapping) in the atmosphere, it is chemically reactive in the ocean, making carbonic acid. We’ve put so much ancient carbon into the atmosphere, and therefore into the ocean, that we’ve altered the pH of the global ocean. Today, it’s 30% more acidic than it was before industrialization, and more acidic than it’s been in about 55 million years.

This basket of threats means that if we do nothing to reverse these trends, the world’s ocean “is at a high risk of entering a phase of extinction of marine species unprecedented in human history,” the scientists conclude.

And that’s where the second piece of my obsession comes in. I’ve been reading a paper recently published in Nature: “Has the Earth’s sixth mass extinction already arrived?” by Anthony Barnosky and several collaborators.

The authors have a handy table on the paper’s first page, describing the five mass extinctions, when they happened, how long the die-offs took, how many species were winked out. Opposite these descriptions is a list of the reasons scientists have been able to reconstruct for the extinction spasms.

In each case, changes to ocean chemistry were thought to be key factors. And what’s the answer to the question the paper poses? The authors conclude that another catastrophic mass extinction is imminent within just a few centuries “if current threats to many species are not alleviated.”

“It may be of particular concern that this extinction trajectory would play out under conditions that resemble the ‘perfect storm’ that coincided with past mass extinctions,” the authors write.

The difference between now and the past extinctions, is, of course, that our hand is on this trigger. Unlike in the past, when brutal planetary change came about as continents shifted, mountain ranges emerged, tectonic plates moved around, and asteroids hit, today, the change is simply the cumulative effect of human activity.

The logical next step is to stop the activity that is putting life on the planet–undoubtedly including billions of humans–at risk. It seems to me that this is a policy-maker’s dreamtime, with the biggest stakes of any phase of our species’ short span on the planet.

Alanna Mitchell

Source: ssppjournal.blogspot.com