The production of recycled polyester yarn demonstrates its environmentally friendly characteristics from the raw material collection stage. Its main raw material is waste PET materials. If these wastes are directly landfilled without treatment, it may take hundreds of years to degrade, and incineration will produce a large amount of harmful gases. In the recycled polyester yarn production system, they become valuable resources. The collected waste enters a strict sorting process. Through manual sorting and automated equipment screening, wastes of different materials and different pollution levels are accurately classified to ensure the purity of the raw materials entering the next stage. Physical cleaning, chemical treatment and other methods are used for pretreatment to completely remove surface stains, label glue and other pollutants, providing clean raw materials for subsequent production, which not only avoids the continuous pollution of waste to the environment, but also reduces the resource consumption and ecological damage caused by raw material mining.
Starting a new process of raw material transformation
The pretreated PET material enters the cellulose stage, which is the key transformation step in the production of recycled polyester yarn. In this stage, the raw material can be transformed into cellulose raw material by chemical treatment or mechanical crushing. Chemical treatment usually uses a specific solvent to react with PET to destroy its original molecular structure and gradually depolymerize the macromolecular chain under mild reaction conditions; mechanical crushing uses high-strength grinding and crushing equipment to break the PET material into fine particles through physical external force, thereby changing its physical form. Both methods can convert waste PET into cellulose raw materials suitable for subsequent processing without introducing a large amount of harmful substances. Compared with traditional polyester production that relies on high-energy consumption and high-pollution methods such as petroleum cracking to obtain basic raw materials, recycled polyester yarn has greatly reduced the negative impact on the environment at this stage.
Reshaping fiber rebirth
After the cellulose raw material is converted, it needs to be further converted into cellulose monomers through acid-base hydrolysis or enzymatic hydrolysis. Acid-base hydrolysis uses a specific concentration of acid or alkali solution to react chemically with the cellulose raw material to destroy the chemical bonds between molecules, thereby obtaining cellulose monomers; enzymatic hydrolysis uses the efficient catalytic action of biological enzymes to selectively cut specific chemical bonds in cellulose molecules to achieve a gentle and green monomer conversion process. These monomers then enter the polymerization reaction stage, and under the action of precisely controlled temperature, pressure and catalyst, they are repolymerized to form recycled polyester polymers. The entire process abandons the excessive reliance on non-renewable fossil resources in traditional polyester production, and in the polymerization process, by optimizing process parameters, energy consumption and waste gas and wastewater emissions are reduced, making the production process more environmentally friendly and sustainable.
Environmental advantages of the entire process
Looking at the entire process of recycled polyester yarn production, from raw material collection to finished polymer output, every link is carefully designed around the concept of environmental protection. Compared with traditional polyester production, it does not need to rely on a large amount of petrochemical raw materials, which greatly reduces the demand for non-renewable resources. In the production process, advanced treatment technology and equipment are used to reduce the generation and emission of pollutants. For example, wastewater generated in cleaning, reaction and other links can be recycled after treatment; waste gas in the production process is also purified and discharged after meeting the standards. The innovation of production technology is also reflected in the efficient use of energy. By optimizing equipment operating parameters and adopting energy-saving technologies to reduce energy consumption per unit product, recycled polyester yarn production can truly achieve green transformation from raw materials to production, providing a new technical path and practical example for the sustainable development of the textile industry.
