Catalysts in textile wet processing

Catalysts, which are widely used by the textile industry to stimulate chemical reactions, can play an important role in restricting environmental pollution as well as cost reduction thereby enhancing profitability. Catalysts are essentially categorized as heterogeneous, homogeneous, and biocatalyst, and they can operate under milder conditions, replace harsh chemicals, easy to control as well as recyclable. The utilization of a catalyst depends upon various mechanical and dynamic properties as temperature, pH, particle size, and available active site. The textile industry use catalyst in variety of applications as dyeing, finishing, and effluent treatment, which can be further enhanced by the use of nanotechnology in application of specialized finishes as antimicrobial, water repellent finishes, and bio-finishes. The catalytic reactions are also widely used to eliminate textile pollutants as photocatalytic oxidation, Fenton's oxidation, enzymatic dye degradation, thermolysis, and coagulation and the textile industry is also working to improve catalyst performance for cost reduction, easier application for better ecology.