Investigation of environmental impacts of the flame retardant fabrics obtained via sol-gel method by life cycle analysis

The first part of this dissertation is composed of investigation of the coating process conditions with one, two and three layers of flame retardant coating and its environmental impacts that of the flame retardant fabric with the sol-gel method within an exist master thesis. In the second part, the contribution to the process dynamics and environmental impacts of applying the sol-gel recipe, which is taken from the above-mentioned study, to the cotton, linen and viscose fabrics with different properties in a single step based on the new process flow obtained by adding both the standard process flow and the pre- drying process is examined. In the scope of the study, flame retardant fabrics were obtained by sol-gel method. The flammability properties of fabrics were determined by the limit oxygen index (LOI) test. Mass and energy data obtained from experimental studies have been associated with the production of one square meter of flame retardant fabric in order to evaluate the environmental impacts. Life cycle analysis was performed using GaBi 6 (Thinkstep) software and database, and the potential environmental impacts were assessed using CML 2001 characterization factors developed by Leiden University Environmental Science Center. The results show that as the number of coatings increases, the flammability and associated environmental impacts increase. On the other hand, when the cotton, linen and viscose fabrics were subjected to the pre-drying process, the flammability properties of the fabrics have been increased. However, due to increased energy consumption at the pre-drying process, energyassociated environmental impacts also were increased.