Volatile Matter Release Characteristics of Selected Textile Wastes in Support of Sustainability

One of the challenges to sustainability is the management of textile waste. Effective technologies for recycling this type of waste are still lacking. Currently, textile waste is most often landfilled or incinerated. Pyrolysis offers a more advantageous solution, as it enables partial recovery of raw materials along with energy recovery from the remaining mass, thereby aligning with the circular economy. The kinetics of volatile matter release play an important role in the pyrolysis and combustion of solid substances. This paper presents research related to this issue. The study concerns three waste textile materials (cotton, silk, and polyamide) and the following process parameters: temperatures from 400 to 800 °C and time from 0 to 900 s. The results of the study are characteristics, i.e., functions describing the kinetics of volatile matter release as a function of process parameters. The general forms of these functions were determined taking into account fundamental physical and chemical laws. In addition to process parameters, the functions include coefficients whose values were determined on the basis of experimental measurements. The characteristics were determined for isothermal processes as well as for generalized processes, additionally accounting for temperature variability, which represents an original contribution of this study. Kinetic coefficients were derived from the obtained characteristics. The studies revealed mass fractions of volatile matter exceeding even 90%. The obtained characteristics may serve as tools for improving the sustainable management of textile waste by enabling more rational control of thermal processes.