Assessing safer flame retardants for the textile industry

LIFE-FLAREX project aims to reduce the impact on the environment, human health and workers’ safety of current harmful flame retardants used in the textile finishing industry. It analyzes their environmental impact and technical functionalities and promotes best practices for the sector.

The project, which will finish next year, held a meeting at the beginning of this month in Barcelona to review in depth the progress made so far on all project’s actions. The consortium gathered inputs from its external advisory board, including experts such as Ms. Dunja Drmac, Sustainability Officer at EURATEX, Mr. Eric Sitters, from Flame Retardant Europe association, Prof. Monica Ardanuy, textile professor at Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya and Mr. Denis Mottet, scientific officer at the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA).

The consortium met at the CSIC’s Institute for Advanced Chemistry of Catalonia (IQAC) in Barcelona, where the consortium reviewed various achievements, such as the recently published report on the technical performance of alternative flame retardants conducted at pre-industrial scale.

Next, industrial demonstrations at partners’ facilities will start in the coming weeks: E. CIMA, Bonditex and Pertex in Spain, TF2000 and Giordanetto in Italy, and Inotex in Czech Republic will put in place safer alternatives for flame retardants.