Analysis of Microplastics Released from Plain Woven Classified by Yarn Types during Washing and Drying

• Main Authors: Sola Choi, Miyeon Kwon, Myung-Ja Park, Juhea Kim
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2021-09-01
• Series: Polymers
• Subjects: microplastics; microplastic fiber; washing textile; drying textile; polyester yarn types
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4360/13/17/2988

Microplastics reach the aquatic environment through wastewater. Larger debris is removed in sewage treatment plants, but filters are not explicitly designed to retain sewage sludge’s microplastic or terrestrial soils. Therefore, the effective quantification of filtration system to mitigate microplastics is needed. To mitigate microplastics, various devices have been designed, and the removal efficiency of devices was compared. However, this study focused on identifying different fabrics that shed fewer microplastics. Therefore, in this study, fabric-specific analyses of microplastics of three different fabrics during washing and drying processes were studied. Also, the change in the generation of microplastics for each washing process of standard washing was investigated. The amount of microplastics released according to the washing process was analyzed, and the collected microplastics’ weight, length, and diameter were measured and recorded. According to the different types of yarn, the amount of microplastic fibers produced during washing and drying varied. As the washing processes proceed, the amount of microplastics gradually decreased. The minimum length (>40 µm) of micro-plastics generated were in plain-woven fabric. These results will be helpful to mitigate microplastics in the production of textiles and in selecting built-in filters, and focusing on the strict control of other parameters will be useful for the development of textile-based filters, such as washing bags.