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Led by Estamparia Adalberto and taking advantage of the PRR, the Giatex consortium intends to reduce the water in the textile industry by 40%. “We want to ensure that the use of water in the textile sector becomes circular”, said Mário Jorge Machado, director of Adalberto and also president of ATP.
The textile industry uses close to 40 million liters of water per day. The 40% reduction in water use in the sector aims not only to “leave less water to treat in terms of circularity” – which causes economic savings – but also to make water more available for other types of activities, he says in statements to the Lusa agency.
“One of the relevant components of this project will be the invention of new membranes that can make a difference in these water filtration processes”, also resorting to the sensing and monitoring of water flows, also mentioning the part of biology, a component “important in the degradation materials”, revealed Mário Jorge Machado. With a technology that can have a “domestic application”, the sensing processes will be “linked to algorithms that will allow learning”, to understand whether “new processes with more water are no longer necessary”, added.
“The main objective is that this circularity allows sustainability in terms of water, but also in terms of economic sustainability because, without economic sustainability, the project is not viable for large-scale implementation”, explained. The implementation of this project worth more than 20 million euros, which is part of the Mobilizing Agendas for Business Innovation of the PRR, poses “technical and technological challenges.
In addition to the leader Estamparia Adalberto, Riopele, Enkrott, Somelos, and JF Almeida is part of this project, as well as 12 small and medium-sized companies (SMEs) and the Universities of Minho, Porto, and Beira Interior and the INEGI, INESC TEC or CITEVE institutes.