MIDWOR-LIFE Consortium 1st year meeting

Last Tuesday, 27th of September, the consortium of MIDWOR-LIFE project held the annual meeting at the facilities of IQAC-CSIC, in Barcelona. This follow-up meeting had as a novelty the presence of two members of the project’s External Advisory Board, Prof. G. Rovero of the Polytechnic University of Torino, and Mr. M. Scalia of European Apparel and Textile confederation EURATEX.

 

The meeting began with the presentation of the project and consortium members, and then continued with presentations of the progress of the various tasks of the project. Since June 2016, the final selection of fabrics and DWOR products was completed (two conventional long chain DWOR products (C8 fluorocarbons) and the five alternative products (short chain C6 fluorocarbons and silicones)  – Read the full deliverable). A technical literature review of all of them has been carried out in order to obtain technical details and contrast their technical performance. The first tests at the laboratory already have begun, these will be used to define optimal conditions of application and establish the properties of each product when applied to the selected fabrics.

 

A theoretical analysis has also been performed on the environmental impact of products and preparation of the forms to gather data and carry out the study on an industrial scale has been started.

 

The presence of external observers allowed the participants to obtain a new critical view of the work done and will help focus the following activities more profitably emphasising the needs of the textile industry which currently uses these type of finishing products.

 

MIDWOR-LIFE is a European project, cofounded by the European Community under the LIFE+ Financial Instrument within the axe Environment Policy and Governance and under the Grant Agreement n. LIFE14 ENV/ES/000670.

 

AEI TÈXTILS, a non-profit organization representing the Catalan technical textiles cluster is the coordinator of the project. The consortium is completed by another 5 partners: 3 research institutes/technological centres from Spain: LEITAT Technological Center (member of Tecnio network), CETIM  and the  Institute of Advanced Chemistry of Catalonia from CSIC plus 2 technical textile clusters, POINTEX from Italy and CLUTEX from the Czech Republic.

 

MIDWOR-LIFE is an example of collaborative project between clusters, with the aim to improve competitiveness of their members, SMEs in the technical textiles sector.