A Systematic Review of Polluting Processes Produced by the Textile Industry and Proposals for Abatement Methods

Abstract

The textile industry is one of the most polluting industries worldwide because of its processes that entail the excessive use of water and chemicals, resulting in textile effluents that, in turn, are not treated and controlled correctly. This review aims to identify the most polluting processes in the textile industry and the most efficient methods to reduce the water footprint. The PICO method was used to define the search equation and obtain studies based on the topic, resulting in a total of 4783 articles; then, the PRISMA statement was used to carefully select studies, of which 32 articles met the inclusion criteria. The textile industry's supply chain presents high pollution levels, especially in the dyeing process, with a percentage of 33% effluents, since they use toxic chemicals such as ammonia, sulphide, and lead. Therefore, the study analyzes physical methods (hydrodynamic cavitation and flocculation), chemicals (electrocoagulation, EC-EO, and EC-EF), and biological (degradation assisted by bacteria) to treat wastewater. After analysis of the above methods for treating wastewater, electrocoagulation combined with electro-oxidation (EC-EO) obtained the highest efficiency rate with 88% COD removal and 100% colour removal.