REEMAIN (Resource and Energy Efficient Manufacturing) is a Project supported by EUROPEAN UNION. There are only three demonstration factories around the world where this project is being implemented and BOSSA TAS is one of them, only in Turkey.
Participating in this Project, BOSSA, registered its professional position on environment, energy, raw material and sustainability around the world. With the completion of the project, the production process will gain a new dimension and, will go into the mode of raising and saving which has become a philosophy of BOSSA.
REEMAIN combines cutting edge knowledge and experience from production processes, energy simulation software tools, energy and resource planning and renewable energy and storage to develop and demonstrate a methodology and platform likely to boost the efficiency of both energy and material resources.
The project has four main focus areas:
1. Innovation on use of resources (energy and materials) at the factory, including the optimization of the production-process-product, a seamless integration of renewable energy systems, and the recovery of wasted energy with environmental performances to be measured within a life cycle approach.
2. Decision making tool to support factory owners in the complex tasks of analysis, decision and planning the best strategies to drive their factories towards resource efficiency and minimal environmental and cost impact.
3. Demonstration activities in three different factories (SCM foundry in Italy, Bossa Textiles in Turkey and Gullon Biscuits in Spain)
4. Dissemination at the European and International levels together with a strong support for standardization activities and collaboration within the IMS (International Manufacturing Systems) framework.
Within the REEMAIN framework the intelligent employment of renewable energy technologies and resource saving strategies consider energy purchase, generation, conversion, distribution, utilization, control, storage, re-use in a holistic and integrated way.
The foreseen objectives of REEMAIN cannot become a reality without a set of innovative solutions. There are many technology specialists inside the REEMAIN consortium with the expertise to tackle the development and implementation of different technologies:
• Solar thermal concentration to provide a true seamless integration of renewable energy in to the manufacturing processes.
• Electricity storage to be used as a intermediate storage of energy for better performance and coordination.
• Factory simulation tools to help in the process of analyzing the factories and deciding about the best alternatives to enhance their efficiency.
REEMAIN won't stop here but will continue seeking for the more innovative and cost-efficient technologies to help factories in the process of becoming more efficient through a better waste energy exploitation, integration of renewables and operation optimization.
The improvements made within Bossa TAS within the scope of the project are as follows.
IMPROVEMENT OF MACHINE SPEEDS FOR SPINNING AND WEAVING The basic idea of this efficiency measure was to optimize the speed of the spinning and weaving machines without quality loss, in order to achieve a reduction in the electrical energy consumption per unit production. Preliminary trials has shown a reduction of specific electricity consumption for some yarn types in spinning. The expected annual saving is about 300.000 kWh.
DECREASING THE PROCESS DURATION AND NUMBER OF STEPS (DYEING&FINISHING) For each process in Dimensa Mercerizing machine, the water flow rates were decreased gradually, without losing quality. This way it was achieved a reduction in the required amount of water (measured in Lt/kg of fabric). This reduction equals an absolute value of approximately 55.000 m3 of water savings annualy. Since water is heated up, saving this amount of water also produces an absolute natural gas savings of 370.000 sm3.
DEVELOPMENT OF ENVIRONMENTALLY FRIENDLY FABRICS Recycled, organic and naturally dyed denim fabrics are developed. This measure has no impact on manufacturing energy consumptions. If affects directly to the associated energy and emissions of the raw ingredients. The new products modify the next raw ingredients:
Recycled cotton: It requires extra care to produce yarn with recycled cotton, and it requires additional recycling and rebaling process. Advantage is the economic and environmental saving of valuable fiber that would be waste otherwise.
Organic cotton: Organic agriculture uses crop rotation instead of agrochemicals and artificial fertilizers, and biological pest control instead of pesticides. It has less environmental impact.
Natural dye: Natural dye does not contain toxic and cancerogenic substances as synthetic dyes.
CO2 WASTE WATER TREATMENT This measure replaced the used H2SO4 to neutralize waste water with a less harmful CO2. In order to utilize the full effect of CO2, the reaction time had to be increased. A new bigger pool was constructed which allowed the water to achieve a longer circulation. This measure should not affect much more the energy consumptions of the manufacturing process. It modified the waste water treatment by replacing H2SO4 with CO2. Not only the replacement of substance used for treatment, but also the dosage of it required for unit amount of waste water was reduced. The effects to be studied are associated with environmental issues of the supply of CO2 versus the supply of H2SO4.
WASTE HEAT RECOVERY SYSTEM The drained hot water from washing machine was pumped to a closed filtration tank and then directed to a plate heat exchanger. In this device, heat was transferred from hot waste water to fresh water to preheat before entering the machine, thus producing saving in the thermal energy (natural gas) required to heat the new fresh water up to process temperature. The successful operation of the automatic self-cleaning filter designed by Bossa team was crucial. This measure reduced the natural gas consumption associated to the finishing production stage. The results achieved for the original application stimulated for the replication of this efficiency measure on another machine. Preliminary analysis have shown approximately 700.000 sm3 of natural gas savings annualy for both machines.
BOSSA plays a leadership role in sustainable production. In this respect, this project aims to produce 100% Recycled Product Platform, using r-PET and recycled cotton fibers.
But this process shortens the length of fiber, deteriorating the fiber specifications. Therefore, low staple length yams are obtained from recycled fibers. Nowadays, the longest life and predictable quality recycle fibers are the cotton fibers which are produced from wastes. Another recycled fiber with predictable quality is obtained from the PET flake after the process of breaking, washing, drying of the waste of PET bottles. r-PET fibers are produced with the method of melt blown spinning.
Nowadays, recycled PET flakes are produced as a secondary textile material such as carpet backing, flea bag, pillow, Isolation material, reinforcement material etc.
PET polymer's LCA will be longer if it can be used in ready to wear as a final product in fashion industry. Renown denim brands used this fiber as an input in the fabric production. However, this project takes this concept a step forward. Bossa has developed a 100% recycled fabric with r-Pet fibers that has been gained via recycling plastic bottles as a primary raw material in ready-to-wear market and increased the public awareness to the environment None of the textile companies in the world is close to this achievement yet. BOSSA proudly continues to launch new sustainable products to denim market.
100% recycled denim!
Bossa is proud to invest in sustainability for a better future.
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Ecologies Denim Development by Bossa Denim fabric has been at the heart of every pair of jeans for over 150 years. Even after all this time, producing good quality denim fabric is widely recognized as one of the most difficult aspects of the whole textile manufacturing industry. The specialist dyeing techniques and the extra long yarn lengths that are required have always led to high levels of wate being produced, which in the past would simply have been discarded.
For the past 5 years and more, Bossa Denim Mills has been at the forefront of developing a more environmentally considerate approach to producing denim fabrics with the launch of their Reset Collection in 1997. More recently, we have been turning our attention to the waste produced various manufacturing processes and are committed to finding innovative ways to recycle this waste in ways that can actually enhance the products.
Cotton and fabric waste can be produced at every stage of manufacturing and we have developed new techniques to enable us to capture and recycle this waste. At the start of the process, bales of cotton are opened, blended, cleaned, carded and condensed into slivers. After the roving and spinning stages, yarns are ready for the next step of their journey. The yarn on a large cone can be as long as 3 km. Broken yarns and slivers during this stage are set aside to be recycled.
To make denim, a group of yarns must be gathered together to make a warp rope that runs the length of the fabric. Denim fabric is special because the yarn running the length of the fabric is dyed a difficult job since each rope can be up to 15 km long. Some ropes can not make it to the next stage of production due to insufficient dye saturation or broken yarns, but they do get a second chance when sent for recycling.
So, waste from spinning, rope dyeing and fabrics are collected in sacks and sent to the recycling facility where a shedder reduces the pieces of fabric, ropes and yarns into fibrous form. The recycled cotton fibre is then re-baled to go back to E-Den, Bossa’s spinning mill exclusively for recycled yarns and the process beings all over again.
The Recycled Cotton is blended with Virgin Cotton or Recycled Cotton is used alone with high technology and knowledge to ensure the usual high performance you would expect from a Bossa Denim fabric. There are two additional benefits that come from using Recycled Cotton:
*Because the Recycled Cotton is made from indigo dyed yarns and fabric, it is already blue in color, so after rope dyeing , the fabric takes on a richer indigo hue.
*Recycled Cotton has a slightly slubber character which gives added texture and dimension to the fabric.
